* * * * * * * * * * * *

Chapter Five — The Ghost of the Caravan

* * *

There was no single moment when it was obvious that they had crested the pass, no shiver of recognition at having passed from the lands directly under Her Majesty’s rule (represented in the form of The Governor) to those merely vaguely claimed by it.  Later in the day Tom realized that Pickering was asking him to lean on the brake much more often that he had for a while as the road was now sloping down more often than up.  It had probably been doing so for some little while, but he did not afford that nearly as much of his thought as he did his consideration of dinner, nor anywhere near as much as he attended the quick, sleek animal he had sighted in the underbrush.  He attempted to describe the creature to Pickering, but the man, not surprisingly, did not have a name for it.  New animals native to the planet were discovered with regularity, and Tom daydreamed that perhaps he would have some small part in bringing some unknown creature to the attentions of the naturalists of Victoria Colony.

However, Pickering was no good test of if the animal was yet known.  The man usually had little interest in the world around him, although he focused completely on any job he was set to and was a very careful worker.  He also had a seemingly instinctual understanding of mules, which Ivanovitch would tease him about, even to his face, saying that it was because he was so closely related to them, or that his brain had been replaced with that of a mule when he was young.  Ivanovitch would then immediately contradict this with; “No, that can’t be right — our Mr. Pickering is so much better tempered,” and a fond smile, which forestalled any angry retort, or impression that Ivanovitch may be cruel.

And, as one might imagine, Pickering was not a particularly talkative man.  Tom himself was no scintillating deviser of conversation, and long silences would fall between him and Pickering as they drove.  These silences were not uncomfortable to Tom; he welcomed Ivanovitch’s ramblings, but he found Pickering to be companionable and never sullen.

The one change which was startling in it’s suddenness after they crested the pass was that in the weather.  Up until then their days had been mostly overcast or rainy, with a rare treat of midday sun — typical spring weather such as Tom had known all of his life.  The other side of the mountain range was another matter.  Here mornings dawned fine and clear day after day, with only a little rain in the afternoon, and even though Tom had experienced this the year before he found himself in the same disbelief.  With the sun one grew too warm, sometimes, even just riding on the carts, and coats were laid aside under the seats or even tucked beneath the tarpaulin.  And without rain to contend with the evening meals produced by the cook became more elaborate affairs, with treats such as honey-sweetened corn bread being offered nearly every night, which Tom greatly appreciated.

It was within a couple of days of clearing the pass that some of the men of the caravan began to talk more seriously about the poltergeist.  Ivanovitch had probably been the first person to suggest this answer to the odd little things that had begun happening since leaving Sarnwythdon.  And he had meant it in jest, but some of the other men had taken up the idea quite seriously.  Ivanovitch delighted in whipping up a conversation about how inexplicable these small pranks were, and how no human could possibly have carried them out without being caught, and then he would wink aside to Tom until Tom began to suspect Ivanovitch himself as the prankster.

When he hinted this, however, Ivanovitch only laughed.

“I only wish it had been me!  I owe a debt of gratitude to this person for saving me from the boredom of the road.  Oh, just recall Stefan’s face when he found that dried chillies had been mixed with his midday food, and then when he gulped his cold tea to quench the burn it had been laced with the same — it was priceless!”

Ivanovitch’s amusement was not to last much longer, however.

In the first faint blueing of the night to dawn Tom awoke with a powerful need to visit the bushes, and, slipping from his bedroll and pulling on his boots and jacket as quietly as he could, he rolled from under the wagon he shared with Pickering.  Nobody else was up as yet, not even Ivanovitch. (The other men often praised Ivanovitch’s bunkmate, Dobson, as saintly in his patience for being able to put up with Ivanovitch’s notional ways, including his nightly inspection of the ground they would sleep on.  Sometimes he even swept the ground in his desire to avoid insects, and he always shook his blankets violently, both before rolling them up in the morning and before laying them out at night.) The day-foraging animals had not yet awoken, the night-foraging animals seemed all to have gone to bed, and the sentries who were posted were lurking silent and unseen as Tom picked his way carefully to the bushes which had been designated for personal needs.

On his way back he heard a slight creaking and a click.  Someone moving in the Phipps carriage, perhaps.  And as Phipps and his attendants slept inside the carriage, which had spring, it could have been someone rolling over.

But in the next moment that was driven from his mind as a muffled yelp came to his ears, and then a bundle of blankets rolled from under one of the wagons.  Someone struggled free, slapping at himself and dancing upon his blankets in his stocking feet — by his unintelligible cursing announcing himself as Ivanovitch.  As the other men began to wake and roll out from under their wagons, and the Phipps coach door flew open, a lanthorn shining forth from there, Ivanovitch now dashed off in only his shirt and long underwear, out of the camp-site!

Despite his sympathy for Ivanovitch’s plight — for he felt certain that he knew exactly what had happened to the poor man as Tom’s brother, Joe, had played a prank upon Tom, at one time, which had produced similar results — Tom could not help joining in the general laughter which began to emerge as he men awoke enough to realize what had happened.

“Here, Tom,” called Dobson, rummaging under the tarpauline, “He’ll need some fresh clothes I imagine.  You’re the only one dressed — take him these.”

“Certainly.  But, are those his boots?”  Tom asked, setting the clothes aside for a moment.

Dobson indicated they were, and Tom poked up the fire and held the boots in the smoke for a moment.

“I don’t think he’ll care much how they smell,” Dobson commented.

Tom hit the boots together, and the fire sparked as a shower of bugs fell into it.  “If this prankster is anything like my brother, well, when he did this to me he put the bibbets in everything I might reach for.  Could you shake his jacket out over the smoke, too?”

“Good thinking, boy,” Dobson grunted, as he pulled his own (thankfully, insect free) boots on.

Tom set off into the dark brush in the direction Ivanovitch had taken, toward the small stream which ran nearby.

He found the man picking his way back to camp, wet and shivering.

“I shall flay our prankster alive, see if I don’t!”  Ivanovitch muttered as he yanked off his wet shirt and pulled on dry clothes.  “This sort of thing is the product of a deranged mind!  Mark me!  It must be that Brown.  He thinks all this is extremely funny.  Have you seen how he laughs when these misfortunes strike?  He’s a sick, sick man.”

“You laughed, too, every other time.  Besides, it can’t be Brown.  I know I saw him sound asleep.  He was the only person near the fire.”

“Perhaps so.  Yes, I think I recall leaping over him.  Still, he may just have rolled back in, quickly.”

As they had spoken he had finished donning his wet clothes.  He laid the wet shirt across a bush, in hopes, he said, that it might at least dry a bit before morning, and they started back toward the fire.  He peered narrowly at Brown, who grinned up at him in great (and, Tom had to admit, seemingly malicious) amusement.  Ivanovitch scowled all the more, and turned back to Tom.

“But you were up, Lapierre; you saw no-one else about?”

“No, nobody,” Tom responded, then thought of the noises he had heard from the Phipps coach.  Still, he had not actually seen anyone, and casting suspicions on Lord Ethan or his men without very good cause seemed a bad idea.

“You were up, Lapierre?”  Brown interrupted.  “That’s funny.  You were also the first one up the morning Brackenstall found the mud in his boots.”

He had dropped the comment in a studiedly casual manner, and only the three of them and two other men heard it.  Still, by the end of the day murmurs were going around and the other men were looking at Tom oddly.

The day had been long and, if possible, even more difficult than going ascending the mountain range had been, in it’s way.  They had been travelling downhill most of the day and Tom was required to lean on the brake constantly to help keep the cart from pushing the mules down the mountain.  Tom was exhausted in every bone in a quite different way from when he had to shovel gravel much of the day — this was a stiffness induced by having had to tense all his muscles and hold nearly the same pose for a good deal of the time they were moving.  He had a hard time making himself comfortable in his bedroll that evening, and he found himself waking repeatedly during the night.

At one point in the very dead of the night he suddenly found himself wide awake with no idea what had wakened him.  Listening, he though he heard someone moving, stealthily.  Could this be the same person who had performed the pranks and become known as the poltergeist?  His heart beat hard against his ribs.  Perhaps there was a real poltergeist, and he was courting death to interfere with it!  But yet he quietly rolled himself out from his bed, because he found he had to know.  Brown had cast aspersions on his character by implying that it could have been Tom himself who was pulling these pranks, and he dearly wanted a chance to redeem his good name.

Tom carefully found his way through the camp by the faint glimmer of the banked fires, hoping to observe the man, whoever it might be.  He could see someone up ahead, moving slowly through the brush, a whiter patch in the darkness.  He lost the figure as the man moved into a space between the bushes, but could still hear him up ahead.  Tom entered the pitch black brush carefully, moving slowly and trying to be as stealthy as possible in the spaces which were not quite yet a trail.  He was listening hard for the movements of the man up ahead, so when the shriek rang out it made him jump and freeze, his heart pounding.

Now the man was crashing back in an obvious panic, but lost his way slightly in the brush and somehow missed actually running into Tom.  Now people were waking in the camp and calling out, and the man in the wood heard them and altered his course again.  Several people lit lanterns, Tom could see the lights flickering through the screen of leaves, and as soon as the man burst from the brush the lights converged upon him.  Tom picked his way back, but thought it more prudent to angle himself a little so as to emerge to one side of the crowd, hoping to step from the bushes unnoticed.  He was not, however, successful in this, as Brown, hanging back on the edges of the crowd and peering around suspiciously, spotted him.

It was Farley in the midst of the circle, stammering about a ghost in the woods.

“Tom, is that you?”  Brown called out loudly.  “You were out in the same area as Farley?  Did you see anything?”

The buzz of conversation ceased as all eyes turned upon Tom.  A moment of silence, and then a roar emerged from somewhere amongst the crowd, and Brackenstall burst through.

“Lapierre, I’ve had enough of this!  Youthful enthusiasm be damned, I cannot allow you to keep harassing the men this way and distracting them from their work!  Carleton, cut a switch for me, I’ll see to this myself!”

There was little sleep left for anyone that night, least of all Tom, and he could hardly bear sitting on the wagon seat the next day.  Pickering avoided his eyes as though embarrassed, which reaction seemed to be the norm among most of the men.  Brown was the only one who grinned at him, and it was not a friendly smile.  Ivanovitch looked downright sorrowful, and that afternoon when the caravan had stopped for a few minutes rest after another backbreaking session of mud-pit filling, Tom could have sworn that Phipps stolen glances were full of anger.  What he, Tom, could have done to personally anger the young lord he could not imagine, though perhaps the dour Lord Ethan particularly disliked pranksters.

Although no-one spoke to him directly, that evening Brown and another man stopped nearby Tom, conversing in a loud enough tone that Tom could not avoid hearing, discussing what the men had later found at the site of Farley’s apparent ghost — it seems the man had been frightened by a shirt which had been hung to dry on a bramble bush.

“But the really odd thing, you know,” Brown said, casting a sly glance toward Tom as though daring him to speak, “Was that it was Ivanovitch’s shirt, the one he’d pulled off, wet, at our camp-site the night before!  He has no explanation as to how it followed us, as he was certain he had hung it to dry and forgotten about it in the morning.  And only he would have known where he left it.  Well, perhaps there’s one other person who would have known.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *