I jumped backwards as if I’d been shot, never for an instant
doubting him and not giving whatever nasty reptilian thing he was hearing a
chance to get close. Spiders didn’t
concern me, mice were more scared of me than I was of them, even the odd
ill-tempered gull could be chased off but serpents, as everyone knew, were
creatures from the very pit of hell. I
couldn’t even say their common name for fear of the nightmares that would
follow and once in a magazine when I’d come across a picture of one, I’d
dropped it like it was on fire and was running for my life before it hit the
ground.
Now I stood stiff and paralyzed with terror, my breath
frozen in my throat, tears welling up and spilling down my face. The only sound I could hear was the roaring
of my own heartbeat and I knew it was about to leap out of my chest. I’d
be dead before I hit the ground, I thought distractedly and suddenly found my
voice and screamed for all I was worth.
A hand unexpectedly and roughly closed over my eyes and I was abruptly
airborne.
“Hush now,” Arden said softly, holding me - cradling and
swinging me - against his chest, “Hush now, it’s gone.”
I clung to him, smelling Old Spice and pipe tobacco and salt
fish, feeling his course denim shirt against my cheek, waiting for the world to
come back into focus.
“Was it a sn…..” I
managed to stammer though my tears.
“Oh, ay-uh,” he replied gently, “But it’s gone. You can look.”
“Which way did it…..”
“Away from us, child, that’s all you need to know.” He set me down on the dirt road, felt for my
face and wiped my tears. “Here, take my
hand so’s I don’t fall and break a leg.”
Gnarled fingers brushed back my hair, gave my chin an affectionate tweak.
“Lead on, McDuff.”
I set out on the narrow path, walking carefully and mindful
that I was leading a blind man who might could hear something slithering
through the tall grass but wouldn’t see it.
It’d had been his idea to make the trek over Cow Ledge on this bright
and beautiful summer day - he’d complained that the dirt roads were no longer much
of a challenge - and after some serious coaxing he’d worn my grandmother down
and persuaded her to let me take him.
“Mind the tide,” she’d said a dozen times if she’d said it
once, “Stay on the path and no rock climbing or dare devil nonsense. And if you’re not at Clara’s by noon, I’m
calling out the marines.”
Arden had laughed and kissed her powdery cheek.
“Rest easy, old girl,” he’d said good- naturedly, “I’m blind
but I ain’t stupid. We’ll be careful as
church mice and twice as quiet.”
Nana hadn’t liked it much but she’d gone along, giving me a
final warning look, one that clearly said Don’t
make me sorry I agreed to this!
Cow Ledge was a stretch of coastline that began at the
breakwater and wound its way up island, all the way to Beautiful Cove. It was
common land with just one or two falling down shacks at the beginning, then a
mile or so of untended, overgrown wildness until you reached Miss Clara’s. It was all rock and driftwood and tidepools
with the ocean on one side, woods on the other, and only a narrow footpath in
between and even the path disappeared a quarter mile in. There were places you had to climb and scramble, places where a single misstep could
easily turn into a fall and a fall could skin your knees or, God forbid, break
your leg. The further we went, the more
I thought of those places and the blind man behind me. What had seemed like a grand adventure was
now looking like an invitation to disaster.
“Arden,” I said tentatively, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good
idea. If we turn back now.....”
He was on his hands and knees, feeling his way cautiously
across a sharp edged patch of shale and breathing like a hard run horse. A thin trickle of blood had stained one cuff
of his work shirt and there was a ragged tear at the hip of his overalls.
“Turn back?” he demanded harshly, “Give up?”
“It’s gonna get worse,” I said reasonably, “And Nana’ll be
taking me to the woodshed for sure if…..” but this was not a sentence I got to
finish. Cousin Arden steadied himself,
wiped his face with one bloody hand and turned toward the incoming tide.
“Child,” he said softly, but there was steel in his tone, “I
ain’t give up in forty some odd years and I ain’t gonna start now. You don’t get nowhere here givin’ up and
you’d best be rememberin’ that.”
On we went.
Miss Clara’s cabin was in sight by the time the noon factory
whistle shrieked and the painted pony whinnied in reply. Smoke curled from the chimney and spread out
like cobwebs against the blue pastel sky, Miss Clara herself was placidly
rocking on the veranda. She stood,
shielding her eyes from the sun and gave us an unconcerned wave. Here
the treacherous shale and undergrowth gave way for a path again, the path eased
into sand, and the sand led to the little cabin at the edge of the woods.
“Made good time,” Clara observed with a critical look at
Arden’s face and hands, “Though I ‘spect you could use a bit of doctorin’,
boy.” She nodded at me and smiled. “Fetch me my kit, child, up on the kitchen
shelf.”
I fetched bandages and tape and the familiar little bottle
of iodine while Clara poured iced tea and set a plate of corn muffins on the
barrel-turned-tabletop by the rocking chair.
“Turn to me,” she told Arden briskly and he obediently
turned his face for inspection. “And
your hands,” she ordered and he stretched out both, fingers spread, palms down,
then palms up.
“Scrapes and bruises,” she decreed cheerfully, “Nothin’ to
keep an ol’ blind fool down for long.”
“Who you callin’ a fool, ol’ woman?” Arden said gruffly and
winced as Clara dabbed iodine on his cheek, his hand, and a nasty looking near-
gash just above his eyebrow.
“Reckon any blind man willin’ to take on Cow Edge ain’t
nothin’ but a natural fool,” she said mildly, “Drink another glass of tea, boy,
you still got a long ride ahead.”
The painted pony carried us home in high style with the sun
high and warm and the tide washing up onto the shore in long, languid strokes. To a child who didn’t know any better and a
blind man who did, every high-spirited step was a victory dance.
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