Legacy, page 12
“The old well is definitely worth checking out,” Jo said. “I mean, I can’t imagine there’s even water in there with how hot it’s been this summer. It’s filled by the water table near the surface, so I’m sure it goes dry this time of year. We also don’t know what kind of quality that water is. It has a cover, but it’s still basically open to the elements. The drilled well has filters and things, so you don’t get bugs or mud.”
“Or drowned chipmunks.”
Jo laughed. “Exactly—though the cover keeps out larger animals.”
Meg frowned. “I have my backpacking filter here. It’s always with my camping supplies.”
“Me, too.”
“So if there’s water, we could get some out of the well and filter it. I’ve definitely had to get some pretty dank stuff from rivers and lakes before, and my filter completely cleared it. It’s better than having to lug water up here from town, anyway.”
“Sounds like a plan. Let’s see if Carter has the keys.”
They started to walk back toward the cabin, but Meg suddenly stopped. Jo raised an eyebrow and waited. Meg was quiet for a long time, but she finally sighed as if reluctant. “I came out here to ask your opinion about something.” Her face was slightly pink, and her eyes were rooted to the ground.
“What?” Jo asked. Meg looked up, and Jo realized that she was embarrassed about something. She touched her arm. “It’s okay—just tell me.”
Meg shifted from foot to foot, glancing away again. It took her a while to speak, her gaze darting everywhere by Jo’s face. “All right. So you know how tomorrow is my two-month anniversary with Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I got her some presents. I mean, besides the kimchi. Earrings, a scarf, my favorite novel.” Her eyes met Jo’s before sliding away again. “Do you think it’s too much? I don’t want to scare her away—look too needy, or something.”
Jo had to force herself not to laugh. Meg was not only embarrassed; she seemed genuinely scared. She grabbed both of Meg’s broad shoulders and made her meet her eyes.
“Listen to me, now, Meg, and listen well. You’re not going to scare her off. That woman is crazy about you.”
Meg’s face brightened. “She is?”
Jo nodded and let go of her. “She totally is. A few presents will only make her happy. Nothing else.”
“You’re sure?”
“Completely.”
“I was going to give it all to her up at the peak. She really loves it there.” Meg looked shamefaced again.
Jo smiled. “That’s a great idea.”
“I even bought a little gift bag. With a bow. Carter hid everything under her bed.”
Jo had a hard time picturing Meg buying something like a gift bag. Her butch swagger was so rigid, she usually avoided anything “girly.” The fact that she was willing to go into a store and get something like that spoke volumes about her feelings for Rachel.
She squeezed her shoulders again. “She’ll love it. I promise.”
They continued toward the cabin, and Carter came out just as they reached the porch.
“Everything okay out here? Any sign of him?”
Jo shook her head. “I don’t think he’ll come back during the day. He was just some bum. We probably scared him off.”
“I think that, too. Still, I should probably report him, anyway. He shouldn’t be up here in the park or on our property, for that matter.” She frowned when she saw the empty bucket. “What’s wrong? Is the hand pump broken?”
Jo nodded. “It’s rusted shut. Won’t budge. Even Miss Muscles here couldn’t move it.”
“Did you try vinegar?”
Jo laughed. Of course Carter knew what to use. “Can’t say I did. Didn’t have any on me. We were going to check out the old well.” She explained their idea about using their water filters.
Carter lifted her eyebrows and nodded. “That could work. But yeah, only if there’s water in there.” She unclipped a set of keys from the carabiner on her belt and held it out. “One of these fits the locks for the cover. Do you have a flashlight?”
Jo took the keys. “What for?”
“So you can see down inside the well.”
“Oh, yeah, didn’t think of it.” She checked her pocket. “Yes—I have one.”
“I’ll see if I can find any vinegar inside. Maybe we won’t need to use the old well.”
Jo and Meg headed down the trail to the cemetery together, Jo in the lead. It was now getting into morning proper, but the sky was still so dark it seemed much earlier. It was a little warmer than when she’d first come outside, but Jo still wished she’d thought of bringing her hat and gloves. Her exposed hand, the one holding the bucket, was painfully cold, and she was forced to switch back and forth to give the other one time inside a pocket.
“Damn,” Meg said when they finally reached the well. She blew out her breath, and it misted in the air. “Friggin’ freezing out here.”
“No kidding. Let’s get this over with so we can get back inside.”
They found two locks on the cover, one on either side to keep it down and closed. It took her a couple of tries to find the right keys, and both locks opened with reluctance. It might have been twenty years since anyone needed the hand pump, but Jo knew it had been even longer since anyone had opened this well. It took both of them to lift the enormous wooden cover off, and they set it down next to the well, propped on its side against the stone lip around the well.
Despite its age, some hundred and thirty or forty years, the well seemed in good shape. The stones that ringed it were still solid, still flush with each other, and filled in with something like concrete. This kind of well, when used, had to be dug deeper and deeper as the years passed and the water table dropped. That was why the drilled well they used at the cabin now was so much better—it went much farther into the ground than anyone with a well like this could ever hope to dig. The rim of stones rose about three feet off the ground. She knew from old pictures that a kind of hand crank used to hang over the top for the bucket, but that was long gone. Now, without the cover, it was simply an open hole.
The well was some four or five feet across, and the light from the sun penetrated ten or fifteen feet below the stone rim. Jo leaned forward a little and shone her flashlight down inside, but the angle was awkward. She would have to lean over much farther than she was comfortable doing in order to see down in it properly.
Meg crouched down and picked up a little pebble, then flicked it into the well. It seemed like a long time before they heard a splash.
“Wow. I would never have thought it was that deep.”
Jo shook her head. “Me, either. But at least we know there’s water in there. We should have brought a rope. Then we could lower the flashlight into it. We’ll need a rope for the bucket, anyway.”
“I’ll go grab one.”
Jo watched her disappear down the trail back toward the cabin. She rested her lower legs against the rim of the well, not quite daring to actually sit on the ledge. She took the opportunity to warm both her hands, cramming them into her pockets, and frowned up at the sky. She was starting to hope Andy would decide to stay home. As much as she wanted to see her, it seemed as if it might snow sometime today, and maybe soon. It would likely be flurries, if anything, but the trail up here would be slick and dangerous. That old adage about Colorado was true, especially in the mountains: wait ten minutes, and the weather will change. A cold snap like this was extreme, but again, not necessarily unheard of at this elevation this time of year. Two years ago, Jo had been caught in something like a blizzard hiking Long’s Peak, and that had been in September, too. She’d been lucky to make it out alive.
She heard something splash in the water below and jerked away from the well, standing up and staring at the opening, wary. It had likely been a frog, or she might have knocked a loose stone off the edge, but the noise was unnerving, anyway. She took a couple of careful steps toward the edge, peering down, and listened. Nothing. She set her hand on the rim and then leaned over to see inside better.
Her vision began to cloud, and the world took on a surreal, cloudy haze. The cold, which had been a nagging, painful sting in the air, deepened, and she shuddered, hard. Her breath, which had been misting the air, now swirled out of her mouth and nose in billowing clouds. Even stranger, the day, which had been unusually dark, seemed to be losing light and color. She took a couple of steps away to peer up at the sky, part of her confused to see the same uniform bank of clouds that had been there above her all morning. If anything, the sky was lighter than it had before—a glimpse of sun peeking out here and there—yet it was incredibly dark down here on the ground, almost like she was standing in the shadow of something that loomed over her. She looked around, thinking she might spot it, but the shadow seemed to be cast from something that wasn’t there. It extended some thirty feet outward in a circle from the well.
Her stomach gave her a kind of funny, frightened lurch, and she refocused on the well. Suddenly, she wasn’t scared of it anymore. She could sit down on the edge, no problem. In fact, if she sat on the edge with her feet inside, she’d be able to see down inside, all the way to bottom, rope or no rope. She took another step closer to the rim of stones in order to do just that, but her legs felt stiff—almost numb. She staggered a little and had to grab the edge of the well to keep from falling. She chuckled. She felt drunk. She started to lift her leg in order to climb up on the rim, then paused. Something was wrong. The impulse to get up on the ledge was strong, however, and she raised her leg again.
She heard voices behind her, and as she turned her head in their direction, the world snapped back into reality with an almost audible pop. She staggered and almost sank to the ground, once again grabbing the edge of the well to keep from falling. She was buffeted by a warm, blowing wind, and the light around her brightened perceptibly back to its former cloudy gloom. The voices were still far away but coming her way.
She peered at the well again and then leapt backward, almost tripping. What had she almost done? The idea of climbing onto the ledge and dangling her legs inside was absurd—insane, even. Why had she wanted to do that? She backed away from the well warily, keeping her eyes on it the whole time. She half expected it to start calling for her again.
She recognized the voices a split second before Meg and Andy appeared, and she made herself smile and wave at them. Andy was dressed appropriately for the weather, her blond hair tucked up in a woolen skull cap, her figure shrouded under a gray, waterproof jacket and hiking pants.
Andy lifted a hand in reply, but her brows knit concern as she got closer. “Are you okay? You’re as white as a ghost.”
Jo made herself nod. “I’m fine. Just super cold.”
She peered at her, her fierce gaze critical, suspicious. “Really?”
Jo nodded again. After all, it wasn’t exactly a lie. She was incredibly cold, even worse than before, her limbs almost stiff in the frigid morning air. This wasn’t the deep, arctic frost she’d felt inside that foggy shadow, but it was still very cold out here.
Andy stared at her, evidently still puzzled. “Okay. But let’s go inside and warm up. Carter told me to let you know they got the water back on inside the cabin, so you don’t need to bother with this.”
Meg nodded, grinning. “It was Rachel, actually. She figured out how to turn the water pump on and off from inside, so no one will need to go back and forth to the fuse box. It’s kind of annoying, but it works.”
Jo laughed, weakly. “You’ve got a smart one there.”
“Yep.” Meg smiled, her face radiating pride. She made a shooing gesture. “Go ahead inside, guys. I’ll get this closed up again.”
“No!” Jo said, almost shouting. Meg and Andy stared at her, both of them clearly baffled by her response. She licked her lips. “I just mean…it’s too heavy. To do on your own.”
Andy obviously didn’t believe this explanation, but Meg nodded. “Okay. You head in, and Andy and I will be right behind you.”
Jo shook her head. “That’s okay. I’ll wait.” No way she was leaving anyone near that thing on their own. It was too dangerous.
Both of them seemed to know better than to argue with her, and it took them a couple of minutes to maneuver the wooden cover up over the top of the hole again. They both had to fiddle with the locks, which, while difficult to open, were even harder to close. One of them proved impossible to shut fully.
“Damn it,” Meg said.
Andy took it from her and examined it closely. “Some WD-40 would loosen this right up.”
“There’s some inside. Let’s take the lock with us,” Jo suggested, desperate to get away from the well. Even covered, it was like a grave.
Andy was staring at her again, eyebrows lowered, a slight frown bringing down the corners of her mouth. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Jo nodded and tried to smile. “Just cold—like I said.”
Andy smiled in return and put one arm around her shoulders, her taller height making this gesture seem easy and natural. Her body was warm, almost hot. “Okay, Jo. Whatever you say.”
“Carter said she was getting the stove on in there, so it should be nice and toasty by the time we get back,” Meg added.
They started walked toward the cabin, and Jo threw one glance back at the well before it disappeared behind them. The cover was on—she’d seen them put it on—but the well nevertheless looked like a squatting, open mouth, the stony rim a set of sharp, jumbled teeth.
Chapter Thirteen
Ten minutes later, Jo was still shivering, clutching a cup of coffee in both hands near her face. The stove worked quickly inside a space this small, and it was obviously warm here inside the cabin, but the cold skulked deep inside her, settled in the core of her body like a stone. Andy had put a blanket around her shoulders and was on the other side of the room in the kitchen with the others, all of them chattering away and laughing. She and Rachel already seemed like close friends. Jo was glad she was distracted. What had happened had shaken and terrified her.
But what had occurred? Her memory, like the shadow that had attacked her, was foggy. In fact, the harder she tried to remember why she had been about to climb onto the edge of the well, the less she could understand what she had almost done. She did recall, however, that strong urge, almost a compulsion, to get up and put her legs down inside that hole. She had felt like she had no choice. She shuddered and took a long pull on her coffee. The sooner she forgot it, the better. If she told anyone, they would think she was losing her mind.
Jo shook her head slightly to clear it and made herself focus on the conversation in the kitchen. Carter was telling Andy about the man Jo had seen last night in the woods. Andy nodded when Carter suggested he might be a squatter.
“We get a lot of that up here, unfortunately. Just last week, I had to help evacuate a whole family camped out in the woods near the west entrance—parents, three kids. It was heartbreaking.”
“Why would anyone do something like that?” Rachel asked. “With kids, I mean?”
Andy shrugged. “Lots of reasons. Those people—the parents, I mean—were survivalist types. They’d even built a little Walden Pond–type cabin, of sorts, though it was falling apart when we found them. They had a garden and everything. They’d been up there for months.” She paused. “Luckily the parents surrendered their guns without a fight.”
“Jesus,” Meg said. “That’s terrifying.”
“Definitely. But since the guy you saw came only at night, and only the once, I think you’re right, Carter. He probably has a squat nearby and got curious when he heard all of you over here, especially if it’s been a couple of years since you were up here. With your permission, I’ll make some phone calls when I get down and set up a search, but I would imagine you scared him off.”
“Oh, look!” Rachel said, pointing out the window. “It’s snowing!”
The flakes were coming down hard and fast outside, the air almost white. Jo was surprised. Usually, if it snowed this time of year, it was flurries at most, and generally not even that—just a few snowflakes in the air for ten or fifteen minutes. The size of these flakes and their fury suggested a real snowstorm. If it kept up they could get snowed in here for a day or two, maybe longer.
“I can’t believe it’s snowing in September,” Rachel said.
“It’s unusual, for sure, but I’ve seen it happen before,” Andy said. “Two years ago, some parts of Rocky had snow in August. It was totally fine down in Estes before I headed up here. A little cloudy, but I didn’t expect this at all.”
Rachel was staring out the window, her expression wistful. “I haven’t seen snow in years. That was one of the things I was excited about, moving here. I saw it only when we went up to Tahoe when I was a kid.”
“Wow,” Carter said. “It’s really coming down. It’s already sticking out there.”
“Snowball fight!” Meg shouted.
Rachel shrieked and clapped her hands, and they raced into their bedroom, coming out a quick minute later wearing their coats. Carter and Daniela were right behind them, all four of them running outside in a flurry of childish giggles.
Jo hadn’t moved, and when Andy turned around, her smile died and her mouth creased with concern. Jo made herself grin, but Andy’s expression remained serious. She could clearly see that Jo was faking it. She walked over and sat down next to her on the sofa, taking her hands in hers. She rubbed them a couple of times to warm them.
“You must have caught a chill. Your hands are like ice.”
Jo nodded, unable to reply. Andy’s face darkened even further. “Are you okay? Do you feel sick or something?”
Jo opened her mouth to reassure her and then snapped it closed. The memory of her promise to Daniela last night rose in her mind. Did she want to start a relationship with this woman telling lies? Still, even she knew that what had happened out there at the well had been the behavior of a crazy person. She settled on a half-truth.
