Indian Pipes

Chapter One The fog poured in from Vineyard Sound, driven by a northwest wind that whipped it up the steep clay cliffs, streamers of denseness interspersed with open patches. Through gaps in the fog, ninety-two-year-old Victoria Trumbull could see the beam from the lighthouse as it swept round and round above them, alternating red and white, warning mariners of the treacherous rocks of Devil's Bridge that stretched out into the sound far below them. Victoria's geologist daughter Amelia claimed the rocks were a terminal moraine dropped by the glacier twenty thousand years ago. Wampanoag legend said the rocks were scattered by the giant Moshup when he emptied his pipe into the waters of the sound. As the light swept above them in the gathering dusk, droplets of moisture in Victoria's white hair glistened red, then white. She leaned on the stick her granddaughter Elizabeth had cut from the lilac tree, and gazed down. She could hear the pounding surf two hundred feet below her, but she could see almost nothing. The bell buoy off Devil's Bridge clanged. Far away, a foghorn moaned. "Hiram Pennybacker is the worst bore on this Island," said Elizabeth, who was standing behind her grandmother. Victoria's wrinkles framed her smile. "He's got some fierce competition," she said. "We simply wanted to drop off that broken chair for him to fix, but no. Talk, talk, talk." Elizabeth edged closer to the fence. Her arms were summer-tan against her white T-shirt. "You can't see much, can you." Every gesture her granddaughter made reminded Victoria of Jonathan, her dead husband. Elizabeth, who was in her early thirties, was tall and slim and stood straight, like her grandfather. "Hiram's lonely," Victoria said softly. Elizabeth shivered. "It's mysterious this time of evening, no one around, and the mist swirling. It feels more like October than August." She turned away from the fence. "Let's go home, Gram, and have a cup of tea." "Wait a moment." Victoria stared down at the cliff. "I thought I saw something move." Elizabeth stepped back to where her grandmother stood with her knobby fingers laced in the fence wires, her walking stick in hand. "Where?" Elizabeth followed her grandmother's gaze. "I can't see a thing." "Something moved. Look!" The fog had thinned briefly, and Victoria pointed to a wild rosebush that clung to the gullied orange clay below them. "I still don't see anything. Only poison ivy." Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her body. "Let's go." Victoria didn't reply. She willed the fog to part again so she could see whatever it was that had moved. The motion wasn't from the wind, it was more like an animal. A dog, perhaps, was trying to get back up the cliff. "Gram?" Victoria caught a glimpse again of something, farther away than she had thought and much larger than a dog. "There!" she said. "See? It looks like a person." Elizabeth put both hands on the pipe rail at the top of the fence and peered down toward the rosebush. "You're right, Gram. Someone must have fallen." "We need to get help right away," said Victoria. "I'll climb down." ElizaRiggs, Cynthia is the author of 'Indian Pipes', published 2006 under ISBN 9780312354763 and ISBN 0312354762.