The Mill Road

I

The man stared at the ceiling. His feet hung off the side of the bed.

A distant lawnmower buzzed in and out of the afternoon and a soft breeze pulled at the saturated room. He closed his eyes.

. . .

Again the lawnmower wafted into the room.

“Damn lawnmowers.”

He leapt to his feet when his phone rang.

It was the post office in Errol. A package had arrived for him. He thanked the caller and checked his email, hoping for something from the firm. Nothing.

He started the truck and pulled out onto Route 26 without looking. He knew there weren’t any cars coming. Up here, you could hear the cars humming on the road long before you saw them. Majestic old barns stood like sentinels, facing the mountains to the south. Small cabins nestled into the thick evergreens and birches. There were only evergreens and birches here. Except for the apple tree behind the house, of course. And the purple flowers in the yard.

He parked in front of the post office.

“Afternoon,” said the postmaster.

“Heard I got a package.”

“Let me see.” The postmaster bent over behind the counter and shuffled.

“Coming from Bethel, Mr. Graves, attorney,” offered the man. “Probably addressed to Ethel—”

The postmaster stood up with a surprised smile. “Oh, you must be Ethel’s grandson!” He held out his hand.

The man took it. “Just came up to close the house and get the estate in order.”

“I see.” The postmaster put one hand on the counter and shook his head. “Ethel was wonderful. I’ll tell you. And of course Herb too, when he was alive. We used to have such a good time at their place, sitting on the porch looking down over the lake, playing cards. And of course, you probably know better than anyone” – the man looked down at his shoes – “Ethel loved her lupines.” The purple flowers. That’s what they’re called.

The postmaster bent over and shuffled again. He presented an overstuffed yellow envelope from Mr. Graves, Esquire. “We usually get a group of folks together on Saturday afternoons at Roger’s place up on Mill Road,” he said. “Most of the same folks that used to gather up at Ethel’s. If you want to come, you’re welcome.”

The man nodded. “Thank you.”

That afternoon he sat at the kitchen table and read through the documents in the envelope. Wills, trusts, codicils, powers of attorney. Mind-numbing, all of it. The late summer sun lulled heavily on the table.  

His head snapped up when the crack of a gun seared through the quiet. He heard it echo off the lake below, bouncing back to him like the vibration of a steel drum.

A chill came over him. He heard Grandpa’s voice: “He’s a wild one, this guy. Lives off the forest. Used to be the only lawyer we ever had up here. Prosecuted a guy for assault, but the guy escaped from jail and started hunting him down. So the lawyer shot him and ran away to the woods.”

In bed that night he stared at the ceiling, following the spidery cracks in the old sheetrock.

II

He woke to the sound of roaring engine brakes. A logging truck careened toward town, stacked with sheared pines. He listened until it was swallowed by the morning calm.  

He went downstairs and stood in the living room. Purple lupines waved outside the windows. He looked at the shelves on the south wall, halved by the line between light and shadow. They were stocked with books, photos, albums, and old records. In front of the shelves were boxes, strewn helter-skelter like a yard sale.

A car crunched into the driveway.

He went to the door. A middle-aged couple stood at the bottom of the porch steps. An elderly man sat in the back seat of the car, holding a cane in one hand.

“Hi,” said the man with an awkward wave. “I’m J.T. and this is my wife Nancy. We live down on Mill Road. Heard you were up to take care of Ethel’s place and figured we’d stop by.”

“Thanks,” said the man. His hands found his pockets.

“We knew your grandmother very well,” said Nancy. “Used to spend a lot of time with her.”

“Yup,” said J.T. “Lots of canoe trips, camping trips, all sorts of stuff. In fact, this afternoon we’re going to meet up with some friends we’ve been seeing every Saturday for years now, going back to this porch right here. Ethel used to be the host. The group of us has meeting for . . .” he squinted at his wife. “I’d say – near twelve years now?”

“Anyway,” said Nancy, “We just wanted to say hi and let you know that you’re welcome to come if you want to. Once you reach the bottom of Mill Road it’s the third house on the left. If you cross the river, you’ve gone too far.”

She smiled. The man made a good faith effort to return the favor. Can’t escape this damn party, he thought.

III

The postmaster was the first to greet him.

“Quite a party you got here,” said the man.

“Always do,” said the postmaster. “I’ll introduce you.”

There was another introduction to J.T. and Nancy, Bill their father, Rod and Janie “from the dairy downriver,” Jack the mechanic, Laurie the librarian and her husband Don the schoolteacher, Len and Mary the summer residents from Providence “who’ve been coming here since ’73,” and the house’s owner, Roger. There were few pleasantries; those he met plunged right into conversation.

“Your grandfather and I used to have the best times, man, I’ll tell you –”

“Did Ethel mention the lupines she planted at my place? They are just beautiful –”

“So you’re from Boston? Man, I don’t know how you city folks can do that, I’d go crazy in all that hubbub –”

“I was noticing last week driving by Ethel’s place there’s a couple loose clapboards on the north side. I can stop by next week and fix those up for you, only take a little bit –”

Time passed easily with the conversations and the man was glad he had come. Deer hunting, the start of the school year, the winning blueberry pie at the July 4^th Parade, twin calves born at 2 a.m., the price of a Barq’s just went up at the gas station.

“I’ll tell you, your grandparents sure were proud,” Don was saying. “Ethel was a wonderful lady, so humble and all, but you were her weakness. She couldn’t help but brag.”

The man reddened. He changed the subject. “You know the area around Ethel’s house pretty well?”

“I’ve lived down the road from her twenty years now, so sure hope I do.”

“Ever hear any gun shots from near her house?”

Don shrugged. “Gun shots aren’t that uncommon around here,” he said. “Lots of hunters. And seeing as how I’m at the bottom of Mill Road on the water, I couldn’t tell you if a particular shot came from the top of the hill or across the lake. Echoes are too loud.”

The man nodded. “I heard a gunshot from the top of the hill. Definitely a gun shot, and definitely from that direction. Any ideas?”

Don squinted and looked up at the log wall. “Geez, I don’t think so… No, I – that’s weird. Lemme ask Laurie.” He turned around, then swiveled back with a reassuring look on his face. “She’s the librarian here, you know, so she knows all the history and everything that goes on.”

He regretted telling Don. You’re such a damned idiot. Now everyone’s going to hear about it and it’ll be a big deal and you’ll end up looking like a clueless tourist.

Laurie was looking at him with curiosity. “From the top of Mill Road?”

“Way up in the woods somewhere there.”

Laurie pondered. “Well, there is one thing it could be,” she said. “There was a lawyer in town, and –”

A long, eerie wail filled the air.

The hair on the man’s neck stood on end. Every conversation stopped. Even the children playing on the lawn went silent. He looked around with suspicion, but to his surprise everyone was looking toward the water and smiling. Whispers passed around – “That was it!” – “Can you believe they’re here?” Don and Laurie were beaming.

A second wail, this one longer and more serene, even beautiful. The screen porch audience murmured with delight.

The man leaned toward Don. “What is that?”

Don turned around, shocked. “You’ve never heard a loon before?”

“A what?”

Don threw his head back and laughed. “A loon! It’s a bird. Got that beautiful sad call you just heard. Amazing, isn’t it? Makes your spine tingle.”

Laurie smiled at him. “Don and I have worked with the Audubon Society for years to bring loons back to the lake," she said. "They were almost completely wiped out when we got here thirty years ago, and now we have them back.”

“And I’m sure you know what Ethel used to say about loons, right?” said Len, smiling at him.

The man’s mind raced. His hands fumbled with the arms of his chair. “Well…she had a lot of sayings.”

“That’s a knee-slapper!” said Len. A quiet laugh rippled through the screen porch. “Whenever something was really good, that’s what she’d say. I bet you remember that better n’ most of us.”

He did not remember.

A third call sang through the screen porch, this one with a slight trill on the end. The man smiled, noting the incongruity between the eerie beauty of the loon’s call and the rollicking barn-dance images inherent in the phrase “knee-slapper.”

He lay awake that night, following the lines in the sheetrock again. Laurie had had left before he could ask her for the rest of her story, but he had heard enough. His mind turned to Len’s use of Nana’s expression. It occurred to him how pleasant it was that they remembered her in that way, as if using her phrases was a way to keep her alive. Then suddenly he had heard that phrase before. He saw the gold Steinway letters at eye-level. Nana sat next to him on the bench, playing the keys. She touched her knee with exaggerated hilarity – “Now that’s a knee-slapper!” – and clasped him on the shoulder.

The man smiled.  

Stillness.

Knee-slapper.

. . .

IV

The gun shot snapped his eyes open.

He clicked on the bedside lamp and sat up.

. . .

Nothing but the wind coming softly up the hill from the lake and threshing itself into the wall of spruce.

. . .

He looked at his phone.

4 A.M.

Twenty minutes later, he was walking up Mill Road. Whether it was because of his curiosity or his boredom or his inability to fall back asleep, he did not know. It was foolish, but so was his partial belief in Grandpa’s story, he knew. The darkness was warm and enveloping. The spruce packed thickly on either side of him, rising up in shadowy heights that blended into stars. He felt like the aged tablet-carrier striding through the crimson pond with walls of water standing tall above him.

The pond emerged so suddenly from the darkness that he almost stepped into it. His eyes turned instinctively upward. It’s never like this in the city. Can hardly see the Big Dipper most nights.

“Pretty little pond isn’t it?”

The man leapt sideways in terror, nearly rushing headlong into a patch of moosewood at the water’s edge. He tripped and crashed into the leaf-coated ground, then scrambled toward a tree. Behind the trunk, he turned toward the voice. A small silhouette stood by the pond, roaring with laughter. It held a double-barreled shotgun in its left hand.

“Really gave you a scare there didn’t I?” The silhouette doubled over again.

The man stepped cautiously out from behind the tree. The gun flashed, brazen in the last bits of moonlight. “Sure did,” he said. His hands were shaking. “What’s your – what are y – you live around here?”

“Down Mill Road a ways, white house with blue shutters. Can’t miss it. You?”

The man watched the shotgun. “No, I’m not – just…visiting.”

The visiting silhouette tilted its head.

“I – I’m Ethel’s grandson. Came up here to close the estate.”

The silhouette’s head rocked back to equilibrium. “We were all sorry to lose Ethel.”

He kept an eye on the firearm.

“By the way,” said the visitor, “I’m Jed. Nice to meet you.” He held out a hand.

The man hesitated, then took it. “What are you –” He directed his eyes at the shotgun.

Jed looked down and laughed again. “Don’t you know it's turkey season, son?”

“I’m…not from here.”

“Oh, right, of course.” The moon was setting now and he could see Jed’s tight grey beard and orange hunting vest. “Been trying to get one the past couple days, no luck yet.”

“I see, so – wait a minute, were you hunting yesterday as well?”

“Sure was. Came this close –” Jed held his forefinger and thumb close together – “to getting a nice big tom, but it didn’t go my way.”

The man nodded. His hands had stopped shaking.

“Anyway” – Jed turned and shuffled away from him – “Gotta get back before too long. Miles to go before I sleep. I’ll walk with you down the hill.”

The man followed.

“So what do you do for work?” asked Jed.

“I’m a lawyer. Firm in Boston.”

Jed turned to him, smiling. “I used to be a lawyer myself!”

The man looked up sharply. “Really?”

“Yup. Had a practice down in town for years, then moved up here when I retired." He kicked a rock out of the path. "You may have heard about one of my cases. Made the news all over. A guy I prosecuted escaped from jail – ”

The man stared.

“ – an’ tried to come hunt me down. Crazy guy, lemme’ tell you.” Jed whistled softly. “Anyway the cops tracked him down before he could do any damage, but we had a couple of days there when we lived up here by this pond. In a tent. Didn’t want to stay home in case he found his way to our house, so we camped up here just in case. Lived off your grandparents for that week. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Traveled through Ethel’s lupine fields, so we could stay off the road.”

Jed swung the shotgun onto his other shoulder. “And that’s how I came to know the woods around here so well. Ever since then, this is where I come to hunt. Hope I didn’t scare you too much with the shots yesterday.” He glanced across the road with an apologetic chuckle.

“No,” said the man. “Not at all.” He breathed out, long and slow.

They crunched together for several minutes.

“You know,” said Jed, “there’s another path that goes right down to your folks’ place like the road does, just a lot nicer of a walk. What do you say we take it?”

“Sure.”

“Your grandparents never took you here?”

“Couldn’t say.”

Jed veered off the road onto a narrow footpath that meandered through low evergreens like a Narnian thoroughfare. The man had to keep his eyes down to avoid tripping on the maze of thick roots and grainy rocks that peppered the ground. He did not notice when Jed stepped into the field and nearly ran him over. Embarrassed, he stepped to the side. Hope he didn’t notice—

Far below him, the lake panned out across the bottom of the valley, shimmering with the first rays of sunlight. Hills undulated up from its banks and rolled in green waves toward Dixville Notch. To the north, mountains rose into scratched grey rock faces that piled on one another in their ascent to the sky. And in front of him, sloping down as far as he could see, waved thousands and thousands of bright purple lupines.