That’s a real welcome! he thought; beeswax candles were expensive, and tallow dips weren’t free either.
Then he remembered that they would have had no way of knowing that today would be his homecoming. Which meant that all this extravagant light was for some other cause. A wedding? But there hadn’t been any in prospect when he left. Besides, it wasn’t Sixthday afternoon, when most weddings were held. That meant a wake was the mostly likely explanation, since nobody stinted in honouring the dead. And many of the men would drink through the night until their wives said enough and took them home.
Everyone had been healthy when he left, but that meant little: illness or accident could take a healthy man or woman suddenly enough, and farmers knew that as well as any.
Bram hastened up the drive, pausing when he noticed Farmer Glidden’s wagon, which had been hidden by his mother’s lilacs. Then he glanced into the barn, where another lantern was lit, and he noted several horses belonging to the neighbours and a few beasts that belonged to Lorrie Merford’s family, including their dairy-cow Tessie.
Something was most definitely going on and it probably wasn’t good. Why was the Merford stock in his father’s barn? Bram knew that his family couldn’t possibly afford to buy them; nor would the Merfords sell them.
Bram hurried to the house. Hearing voices raised inside, he entered quietly through the rear door, the better to hear the fast and furious discussion that was going on. The big, single room that held the main hearth was filled with neighbours, many seated on the benches around the kitchen table, others on stools around the room, the rest standing or squatting against the wall.
‘It was animals! Wild dogs or something like that!’ said Tucker Holsworth, smacking the table for emphasis as he waved his pipe in the air. His face was black with soot and dirt.
‘But what about what Lorrie said?’ asked Bram’s father.
‘Y’mean about men doing it with some sort of tool?’ Holsworth puffed on his pipe as he sought to keep it lit.
‘Well, she was there. If that’s what she said she saw should we be doubting her?’
‘But those marks were made by some animal’s teeth! No knife did that to them,’ offered Rafe Kimble, who stood by the kitchen hearth. He was also black from soot.
‘And little Rip? Where did he go to if someone didn’t kidnap him, then?’ asked his wife, Elma.
‘He could have perished in the fire, and the girl just didn’t see it,’ insisted Allet.
‘If the animal was big enough then it could have dragged him off to its den.’ That came from Jacob Reese, who sat at the table with the other two men.
‘But how could an animal like that or even a pack of animals, be in the area and us not notice?’ asked Ossrey. ‘Where have they gone then? I’ve heard no rumours of such as happened to the Merfords happening anywhere else.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Bram exclaimed. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Bram!’ his mother cried. Allet jumped up from her seat and made her way through the crowd to embrace him.
‘Son!’ Ossrey said. ‘Good to see you, boy!’ He offered his hand across the kitchen table and Bram leaned through the crowd of neighbours to take it with a brief smile. From the leftover food on the table and the open jugs, it was clear the women had been in the kitchen all night, cooking breakfast for the men, who had just finished eating.
‘You must be starving,’ Allet said. ‘Sit down, Bram,’ she pushed him toward her place at the table, ‘and I’ll get you something.’
‘I’m fine, Mother,’ Bram said, but he did take her seat after he’d unslung his bundle and propped the bow and quiver against the wall beside the door. ‘What’s happened? It sounds bad.’ He looked around at his neighbours, then turned expectantly to his father.
Ossrey bowed his head and looked at Bram from under his shaggy eyebrows. He was a dark hairy man except for a thinning patch on top of his head, and broader-built than his son would ever be. ‘I’m so sorry you’ve come home to such bad news, son,’ he began. ‘The Merfords have suffered a terrible tragedy.’
‘Lorrie?’ Bram asked immediately.
His mother’s lips thinned and she frowned slightly, her eyes shifting to Farmer Glidden to see how he took Bram’s singular interest in Lorrie Merford.
‘She was fine the last time we saw her,’ Allet said, crossing her arms.
‘What do you mean the last time you saw her?’ Bram demanded. When no answer was forthcoming, he gripped his mother by the arms and asked, ‘Mother, what happened?’
‘Lorrie’s parents were both killed,’ Farmer Glidden told him quickly. ‘Their house and barn were burned down and we spent the night over there putting out fires in the fields. Just got back here an hour ago.’ He was silent a moment, then added, ‘Her brother’s gone missing. I’m told Lorrie took her horse and rode out. Probably gone after the boy.’