Seeing Buffalo
by David Rogers
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Table of Contents, parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
part 4
Back in the kitchen, I started the coffee, plugged in my phone to charge and ate a can of peaches. The phone showed one bar, not great reception but adequate to call Aunt Will. I filled her in on the events of the morning. She asked when I had arrived. I told her yesterday, too late even to start the generator. She seemed to think that was a satisfactory reason for not having called sooner.
“I met one of the neighbors, too,” I said. “She was here when I got here yesterday.”
“Neighbors?” Will sounded surprised and curious.
“You know, young, odd name, Pasiphae, or something like that. Said to call her Patty.”
“Strange. Doesn’t ring a bell. Last I knew, nobody lived close enough to really call a neighbor. When did she come by?”
“She was here when I arrived. In the house. She also said you asked her to feed the horses yesterday.”
“Certainly not. Like I said, I never heard of her, and why would I ask anyone to feed the horses when you were on the way?”
“I don’t know. Guess you wouldn’t. She was here, that’s all I know.”
“And in the house, you say? Doing what?”
“Nothing, as far as I could tell. Taking a nap, I guessed. Seemed like she was expecting me.”
“Anything broken? Stolen?”
“No, nothing,” I said. “Not that I could see, anyway. She seemed like a nice girl, not some criminal or vagrant. I mean, I would’ve called you sooner if I knew you hadn’t sent her, but... She reminded me of how I used to play tag sometimes, years ago, with someone. Guess it was her.”
“What did you say her name was?”
“Patty. Short for the odd name.”
“Now that you mention it, there was a girl who lived up the road a way, called Patty. Her family had property across the creek, on the east side.” Will paused. “But it couldn’t have been her. The one I’m recalling... I think she drowned, about nine years ago. At least that’s what I remember hearing from your father. He was staying there at the time. The creek flooded, and she got too close. Fascinated by the water, I guess, which was probably running fast.
“You were living with your mother then, so you wouldn’t remember. After the little girl drowned, I was glad you were safely away from danger. There were... stories, too, about the people who lived in that house on the left, as you head toward town. But it’s abandoned now, and they died long ago, anyway. ”
“So, what: you think I talked to a ghost?”
“Don’t be silly. No such thing as ghosts. Probably someone’s idea of a joke. But lock the door when you go to town, just in case.”
“I thought I saw a bull down by the trees, too, yesterday. Did Dad try to take up cattle breeding or something?”
“A bull? No, there shouldn’t be any bulls around. Unless it’s someone else’s. One might have crossed the creek at a shallow spot, I guess. Maybe the girl was looking for the bull. But my guess is, it was probably just one of the horses. If it was near the trees, shadows could play tricks with your eyes.”
“Maybe. But this animal had horns. Horses don’t have horns. Not unless Dad’s been playing Doctor Moreau.”
“Doctor who?”
“No, the doctor Who’s the Time Lord. Also British, though, for what that’s worth. Well, really, Doctor Who is an alien, but for some reason he sounds British.”
“I have no idea what you’re taking about. Is this the sort of nonsense they teach you at that liberal college, instead of how to run a business and turn a profit?”
“No. Well, yes, maybe. Probably. But I read Wells when I was in high school. Also Doctor Who novels.”
“Whatever. Just lock the doors when you go out.”
* * *
I did, in fact, lock the door when I left to make a supply run. All I really needed was a good pair of boots, if I could find any, and food — for me, as the barn seemed pretty well stocked up. Mostly I planned to get the dry or canned varieties. The kitchen had a refrigerator, but it appeared to run on current from the generator, and I did not know how reliable it would be. No point having a fridge full of rotting food if the electricity fizzled. The little town had a combination mini-mart/gas station, but I needed no gas, so I kept going to the one full-fledged grocery store.
I bought a month’s worth of coffee, canned chili beans, green beans, peaches and peanut butter. Also a couple of boxes of crackers, corn flakes and some powdered milk — good enough for cereal, I supposed — and a box of spaghetti and a jar of sauce, in case I felt great culinary ambitions or in case Patty showed up again, which I sort of hoped she would, though the prospect left me with a vague sort of anxiety, given my conversation with Aunt Will. A bag each of potatoes and onions seemed like a good idea; they could be used to make a rudimentary soup, with the addition of a can of green beans.
Since nothing needed refrigerating, I would have time to stop at the local library, if it still existed. I remembered discovering Goosebumps and Harry Potter there at just the right ages to devour them and ask for more.
My mother and Aunt Will had minimal patience for reading “made-up stories like that,” themselves, but fortunately neither cared in the least what I read. If my mother had discovered copies of Penthouse or Playboy — not that I had any — under the mattress, she would not have blinked an eye. My dad was himself enough of a dreamer to appreciate small doses of Tolkien, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman and a little Harry Potter. One of the few things we had in common.
A few blocks from the grocery, I found the library just where I had left it. The narrow two-story Gothic house, complete with widow’s walk, the door to which was kept firmly locked, or at least it had been when I tried it as an adventurous eight-year-old. The building had been converted over a century ago to hold books, magazines and newspapers. I parked in the little lot in back and walked around.
Inside, the first change I noticed was a pair of computers. I guessed they provided Internet access for those who were not smart-phone-equipped or who lived in places like Horseshoe Farm, where a full-fledged computer would have seemed as out of place as an Apollo rocket in ancient Greece.
I was immediately greeted by one thing no digital device nor any number of e-books will ever successfully simulate: the smell of decaying paper, old book bindings and a whiff of fresh coffee from somewhere in back. A woman, far younger than the elderly librarian I remembered, was seated at the desk. The one I remembered, incidentally, was Mrs. Younger, or Betsy, once you got to know her. This young woman, with straight auburn hair and round glasses that gave her a slightly owlish look, was not Mrs. Elder, though for the sake of symmetry I sort of wished she were. The name plate identified her as Katie Winsome, ALA. When I thought about it, though, that name was at least as interesting as Elder would have been. So much for fantasy improving on reality.
“You need help finding anything?” Katie Winsome asked. I must have looked a little dazed, lost as I was in memory inspired by library smells and thoughts of Betsy Younger.
“I don’t suppose Betsy still works here? Mrs. Younger, I mean?”
“Went to live with her son, in Chicago, last I heard. That was about five years ago. But I can help with whatever you are looking for.”
My inner critic wanted to point out the overstatement, but I shushed it. “I was wondering how far back the newspaper archive goes. I’m looking for information on a place called Horseshoe Farm.”
“Right, I know the place. Local family owns it. Name of... James, I believe. What did you want to know?”
“Actually, I am the local family. One of them, I mean. I’m Tom James. Taking care of the place for the summer. So it’s the older history that interests me more. I know it’s been in the family for generations, but who owned it before, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, you must be Ernest James’ son... I remember now.”
I sincerely hoped she wasn’t remembering one of my dad’s more ridiculous obsessions, but all she said was, “He brought some books back last week, said he was going on a trip and his son would be out on the farm.”
I wondered why I didn’t recall her at all from high school. So I asked, “Did you go to school here?”
“No. A couple of towns farther west. My cousin is from here, though, and she told me about the job. I’m ALA certified, so I guess I was a strong candidate for the job.” She tapped the name plate on the desk.
“American Library Association?” I asked, going into college-boy mode for a moment. Two can play the intellectual-elite game. Or at least play the educated show-off game. But if I sounded sarcastic, she didn’t seem to mind, just nodded.
“The actual paper copies of newsprint here are pretty limited,” she said, “but there’s always the Historical Society. They may have more, and other things besides newspaper. But I will show you what we have.”
She led me to a small room that might have been a kitchen or pantry, once upon a time, before the house was converted to serve as library. Every wall was lined with shelves, each stacked high with newspapers. “They’re in chronological order,” Katie Winsome said. “The paper copies go back to the 1950s. A few of the older ones are on microfilm.” She pointed to the corner, at a machine with reels and levers and a dusty display screen. It must have been considered fantastically high-tech equipment, sometime in the previous century. Beside it was a cabinet of file drawers, also labeled by year and month.
“I’m applying for a grant to have these all — paper and film — scanned and digitized, so we can create a proper searchable online database. Till then, I’m afraid we’re still one step from the stone age. Any particular year?”
I surveyed the walls of old newspaper. “Well... what I really want is to know more about Horseshoe Farm. How far back my family owned it, who owned it before and so on. But really, anything about the history of the place.”
“For ownership questions, I’d try the Courthouse. They keep property deeds, tax records, that sort of thing. The clerks have documents on anybody who ever filed a lawsuit, too, going back over a century. But all those records probably consist of another mountain of paper, just like this, only bigger.”
I realized a person could spend months, if not years, digging through all the documents, with no guarantee of finding anything exciting. “I guess there’s no index?”
Katie Winsome shook her head. “No, but when it’s all digital, the database will be searchable, which should be just as good. Or better.”
A thought occurred to me. “Actually, I do have a year, or a couple of years, more recently, when something interesting might have happened. There was a flood, a decade or so ago...” I did the math, based on what Aunt Will had told me and came up with a span of a couple of years when the drowning, or alleged drowning, might have occurred.
“Those are over here,” Katie Winsome said, pointing to the corner opposite the microfilm reader. “For stories about a flood, probably spring issues, say March through June, seem like the best bet.”
I thanked her and started leafing through the large, awkward pages of text. It was hard to imagine a time when this was the primary way people found out what was happening in the world at large. Then I reflected, in a thousand years, or ten thousand years, however long the human race survives, all our digital files are likely to be lost or meaningless. But at least some of the stuff on paper might still be around. Along with a few pictures. Conversely, if computer files are still intact, will any machine even be able to read them?
* * *
Copyright © 2021 by David Rogers
