The Formula for Murder (33 page)

“Get many strange sightings?” Wells asks.

“No more than anyone else. The black beast is out there, but if you leave it alone it’ll just take a sheep or a horse now and again, though some say it likes the taste of human flesh even better.”

“Ever seen it?” I ask.

“Never had it come up and eat out of me hand if that’s what you mean, but you can’t have spent your life on the moors without now and again seeing things that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”

Amen to that.

“Mr. and Mrs. Wells” once again lay down together. Even though we are fully clothed, as soon as Farmer Hayes turns down the lamp and retreats to his bedroom there will be a bit of necking and petting with the newlyweds sharing his wool mat.

The moment I lay down I am smothered with hot, wet kisses and I start giggling. Wells, too, receives attention as both the big dogs flop down next to us.

When Hansel and Gretel are settled beside us, Wells leans over and kisses me and then puts a finger on my lips to hush me.

“I know what you’re going to say. The dog kisses better.”

56

Hansel and Gretel awaken me as they get up to leave the house with Farmer Hayes. Wells is still sound asleep, snoring very softly, as I lay for a moment hating that I have to get up and go outside to the privy. Indoor plumbing, which lacks the cold walk and icy seat of an outhouse, is perhaps the greatest boon to mankind.

The fire in the fireplace has died down and now just ashes linger, leaving the room slightly chilly and crisp. I see the farmer has left breakfast on the table, some bangers and bread and a jug of what people who have to work outside on cold mornings take a swig of to warm their insides.

It’s a gray morning, quiet and hazy with the fog not burned off yet. After I endure the privy that blocks of ice could well have been stored in, I hear the dogs barking and decide to watch how the famous breed herds sheep.

The barking is coming from beyond a small ridge at the end of rows of cabbage. At the top of the ridge I see sheep being herded by one of the dogs over another hill and I can hear the other dog barking.

Rocks are placed nicely for me to use as stepping stones to cross a small stream. A large green patch of low-lying turf is beyond the creek and I hurry to cross it as the dog and the last sheep disappear over the hill.

I’ve gone no more than four or five steps when I realize the ground is quaking beneath my feet.

I stop and freeze in place.

The ground feels spongy. Standing perfectly still for a moment I can feel the surface trembling underfoot.

I’m on a bog.

I thought I was on a patch of grass but it’s the deceptive green covering that hides the pond of decaying vegetation.

Oh God.
I’m on thin ice. If I step in the wrong spot I will sink.

I begin to tremble. My heart is pounding and I can feel icy fear racing up the back of my legs and along my spine.

“Help…”

My heart has jumped into my throat blocking it and my cry is barely audible. I give a louder shout for aid, but I can hear from the barking that the dogs are now far away. I don’t know how sheep are herded, so I’m not even sure the farmer is with them.

The bog is a flat area surrounded by slopes on all but one side. It strikes me that the ground where the slopes come down might have a grade beneath the surface that makes it slippery and would cause me to fall. I start taking cautious steps toward the flat area.

The surface beneath my feet is soft and wet, with an elastic feel as it presses down under my feet. My knees are weak and shaking, my breathing shallow as I move slowly, afraid that my next step will puncture this greenery that covers the bog like the skin of a primeval beast.

What did Dr. Doyle say? If a bog starts to draw you under, don’t fight it with your feet. Lay on it, putting as much of the surface of your body on it as you can in order to spread your weight.

Like floating in water,
I tell myself. If it starts to take me, I’ll float.

But it’s not water. It’s more like quicksand. And lying flat may just make it easier to swallow me.

I realize I had been wrong to have continued across. I should have retraced my steps back to the creek, back the way I had come without sinking instead of venturing on to unknown footing.

Do I turn around and go back? That would require major movement which could bring on sinking.

Do I lay flat and pray someone will come before I’m swallowed under?

I see something above, on the ridge across from where the sheep had been herded. It’s a movement. I can’t make out any of the details, it’s just a dark figure in a patch of fog, but I’m sure it’s a man on horseback.

“
Help! I’m down here. Help!
”

Like the man, the horse is just a black shadow in the haze, but from its size, it appears to be a full-grown one, not a Dartmoor pony. I suddenly freeze, mortified even more with terror—the horse is moving quickly on the ridge, but I don’t hear the sound of its hooves hitting the ground.

Fear drives me to move.

Since I have no good choices I take a deep breath. I’m going to make a mad dash to the hilly area.

My right foot goes down and slips into the muck.

I try to pull it out, but the bog hangs onto my foot as if I’d stuck it in the jaws of an animal.

A BOG IN DARTMOOR

57

“A rider all in black, a horse that makes no sound.” Wells casts me an appraising look as he hitches the ponies to our buggy. “I’m just glad Mr. Hayes realized he forgot to leave out a loaf of bread and a leg of mutton for our journey or…”

“Don’t say it. I thought my life was over and it would have been if Mr. Hayes wasn’t such a kind soul. Most people would have decided to just continue on with their work. He saw me before I realized he was there because I had my eyes closed, but can you imagine the look on his face when he came over that ridge and found me trying to be calm lying on a bog?” I’d laugh, but I’m still too shook up.

When I realized the bog wasn’t going to let go of my foot, I gave in and lay flat, as Dr. Doyle recommended. It felt that with each breath I took the beast was pulling me down, just a little each time, to torture me. After what seemed like forever, I heard Farmer Hayes’s voice. He came running toward me with a long pole and pulled me out. Never in my life was I more grateful. I didn’t stop hugging him until he appeared to become embarrassed.

“The dear man saved my life.” I didn’t tell Hayes about the phantom and even hesitated about telling Wells. I had been so frightened on the bog and having heard so many tales of the stranger, I fear I might have conjured it up.

“You don’t believe I saw a dark horseman, do you?”

“Of course I believe you.” He tightens a hitch and then turns to me. “But I also believe in ghosts and creatures that are only supposed to belong in a child’s nightmares, in dinosaurs still to be found in a land lost in time, and that the canals of Mars were built by an advanced civilization.”

He gives me a peck on the cheek. “I’m just happy that the dark horseman you saw was His Satanic Majesty and not the ice pick killer. Do you realize you beat the widow maker?”

I nod my head. I’m just happy the devil isn’t ready for me yet.

But, maybe it is a warning.

After going back into the farmhouse to say our last good-bye to Farmer Hayes and Hansel and Gretel, we make good time en route to Widecombe.

As our buggy rumbles along and goes over every bump and dip in the dirt road I want to scream out in pain as my body comes into contact with the wood seat, but I don’t. I keep watching our valiant ponies pulling us along uncomplaining, avoiding falling into a bog.

“Doesn’t the cold, damp morning air remind you of the sea?” I ask Wells, hoping a conversation will keep my mind off my aches and pains.

“Quit.”

So much for conversation, but I can’t blame him, he’s focusing on the road ahead.

The sun is out and has burned off most of the fog, but there is a thin haze that gives the tors in the distance an unearthly feel. Since Dartmoor is part of England’s West Country peninsula and lies between two great bodies of water, the English Channel and the Bristol Channel, they get a lot of fog, mist, and haze which lends to a very spooky atmosphere.

We pass through Widecombe and stop for a midday meal and repair a spoke on the buggy wheel, then continue on, determined to get beyond Chagford before we find an inn or a house that accommodates guests.

“Wells.” I can’t stand the silence anymore and need to talk, if just to kill time. “While you went to find out how the repairs on the buggy were coming along, I was told a story by the waitress in the pub. She said that on our way to Chagford we will pass the grave of an orphan girl. Her name is Mary Jay. Supposedly it was common at the time to give orphan girls the surname ‘Jay’. Anyway, what’s uncanny about Mary Jay’s situation is it’s so similar to Hailey’s.”

“How’s that?”

“As a teenager, Mary was sent to a farm to work and became pregnant by a farmhand. Some say it was rape, others say she was simply so young and inexperienced she didn’t know better. Whatever the cause, faced with an unmarried pregnancy and nowhere to turn, poor Mary Jay killed herself.”

Wells looks at me. “I see what you mean, but unfortunately it is a common story. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard about young, single girls getting pregnant and then killing themselves.”

“I know, but this one gets worse. Because suicide is considered by the church to be a great sin, her body was refused burial on consecrated ground and simply buried at a crossroad. The locals believed that the intersecting roads would keep her restless soul confused and unable to escape and harm them.”

“So they can live in peace, her body lives in confused hell.”

“Exactly. But it does have a happy ending. About the time I was born, good Samaritans had her body removed from the crossroad, properly casketed, and put in a simple mound at a pretty sight along the side of a road. Ever since she was reburied, fresh flowers appear rather miraculously at the grave and the locals claim it is the work of pixies. If you don’t mind, I got specific instructions on how to find the grave. I want to leave flowers on it.”

“Okay, but the pixies are already doing that.”

“I know. I’d like to give them a break.”

As night is falling and we are still on the road, I’m worried that we made a mistake in passing satisfactory accommodations to put more miles behind us, and complain to Wells that I shouldn’t have listened to him, but I give him a peck on the cheek as we come to an inn.

“Wait here while I go see if they have a room.” Wells hands me the reins as he gets down.

As he walks away I know this time there is no question we will register as man and wife. There is no pretense between us. We are lovers … what exactly does that mean? To me, it raises a question—am I in love with Herbert Wells?

I enjoy his company, I feel comfortable lying beside him at night, and I confess that he arouses my passions, the yearning I have to unite body and soul with a man, but is that love?

All in all, my emotions and mind are in a state of confusion. I have met other men who I felt a deep passion for, but my feelings for them were not powerful enough to alter my path in life, though in each case I left a piece of my heart behind and have warm memories.

Wells is different.

He has many of the same traits of two men I have loved—intelligence, ambition, moral and physical courage—both of whom were at least twice Wells’s age. Women were only a small part of their lives, their attention being directed to their careers.

Probably most significant about these men is that each of them is a man’s man. The joy they get from life is in doing things that men enjoy doing with other men.

I am much the same as those men, but I have sensed that Wells loves women with a deep commitment. I know his intent is not to commit himself to any one woman. Quite the opposite, he loves women in general, and has the capacity to love—and love—and love.

While he is no less ambitious than successful men I’ve known, he does not isolate himself from the opposite sex. Rather, he celebrates companionship with women. He is more content to have a romantic dinner with a woman than playing a sporting event or solving the world’s problems over brandy and cigars. He is a woman’s man.

“All set.” Wells hops back into the buggy. “Let’s freshen up before going to the pub.”

I nod my head. So engrossed with my thoughts I didn’t see him return, I find myself blushing as if he was privy to my mental conversation about him.

*   *   *

“D
ID YOU SAY
you came from Ashburton?” a local at the bar turns and asks us as we are eating.

“Yes,” comes from both of us.

“Did you spot anything peculiar on the road through the moors?”

I smother an inclination to tell him I’d been chased by the devil as Wells tells him that everywhere we look on the moors, we see something peculiar.