FOOLS GROUND    

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Strange things happen. I’m an old man now and I’m convinced more than ever that strange things happen all the time. I think a lot of time people don’t even notice them, or, more likely, choose not to notice these things. It seems folks would rather gab on about who want bankrupt or who got a divorce or some other more commonplace event than pay attention to the odd or the unusual. It’s uncomfortable to think about what doesn’t have an easy explanation. But who knows, maybe, like me, they think of these things and can’t find the words to talk about them. Well, I’ve seen and heard my share and I think it’s high time I put some down on paper so they don’t get lost forever.

            I got the idea to start writing this down because of an article I read in the paper the other day. It was about this kid who was lost in the Florida swamps for four days. No one could find him and all had given up hope because the kid was lost in the same swamps where a couple Army Commandos died after being lost for only one night a few years back. Well, anyhow, 4 days, and 14 miles later, the kid goes paddling by a couple of guys fishing in a river. So that’s strange alright but what really was amazing is, that according to the story, the kid has trouble with learning things and can hardly communicate, and no one really knows how much this kid understands about anything because he keeps to himself so much. The experts said maybe his innocence got him by in that snake and alligator infected swamp. Though I agree a good helping of innocence doesn’t hurt anyone and certainly too much training can work against a fellow, I think there’s more to this story than we’ll ever know.

            I’ve seen some pretty strange things myself. For instance, about a week before he hung himself, I saw old Charlie Draper, down at Hank’s Bar, squeeze out a matchstick sized splinter from his belly. Of course, he was yanking splinters out of himself for years after he took that wild ride down at the mill on top of that boxcar. The brakes failed as it rolled onto that freight siding and it just kept on picking up speed until she plowed into the lake. All poor Charlie could do was flatten out on top and hang on for dear life. He was a mess of splinters for a while.

            And I saw the marks on old Barnum’s throat after they fished his carcass out of the water. So, I can speculate as well as the next man about Lavaque’s severed-off hand still down there scooting around on the bottom of the lake.

            I’ve been around to hear some strange things also. And from what I’ve heard, and what I know, I can guess about some of the other unusual happenings around here too. Take for example the tragedy of that pretty Nellie Lombard and her sister, “The Goat Girl”, and what happened in the fire that consumed their despicable minister.

            But those are all stories for another night. My story here begins with two guys in a boat fishing. Well, actually, that’s now exactly where this story begins, but that article about the Florida Swamp Boy, and those 2 fishermen who found him, reminded me of this part of the story. Lord knows there are parts of the story that never got too deep in my memory, but it’s curious how something will kick up an old memory that’s been slumbering for years and send it howling through a person’s head.

            Anyhow, many years ago, in the late 20’s, Floyd Cotter and Olaf Strude were fishing out in the middle of Saunders Bay. In those early days the outboard motor was just making its appearance and Floyd, who was always the first with any new contraption, had one and did not need much of an excuse to employ it either. Since there were not many outboards on the lake at that time there was very little traffic on the big lake. The only other powered boats on the lake at that time belonged to Northwoods Lodge, their motor launch and the fleet of outboards they had for hire. One of the boats in this fleet will play a role in this story too, as you soon you will see.

It was calm and there was not much fishing action going on. While Floyd was fiddling with the motor Olaf saw something swimming towards them across the lake. Olaf became exited, he believed that a bear was heading in their direction because he could see a big black head above the surface of the water. They were fairly out in the wide open, maybe two or three miles from the nearest shore or island, and the sight was unusual.  As the creature drew nearer Olaf began to urge Floyd to fire up the motor so they could get away from it.

Even though Floyd was always a champion of the latest mechanical marvel, he was of poor temper when it came to getting top performance out of one. He was an impatient sort of man, contrary to follow directions, and felt that instructions were “For the dumb buggers.” Though he never realized it, this attitude often left him high and dry and in this case: without a paddle. Olaf told us this story one day down at Red’s and he said that “Floyd couldn’t start a baby buggy, and I’d pity the poor fool who would try to give him any tips on how to do it.”

I can about imagine the two of them out there. Olaf ducking as the starter rope cracked like a bullwhip alongside of his ears while keeping an eye on that big black head thrashing across the lake towards them. And Floyd would be there muttering and cursing everyone from the inventor of the motor to the stockholders in the company, and eventually the dealer who sold him it, as he choked that poor engine and monkeyed with the throttle.

About the time Floyd finally coaxed the motor to life the creature was close enough that even through the cloud of blue exhaust, Olaf could see it was a dog. Like outboards, big Black Labradors weren’t too common in those days either. And at that exact time one of each was missing from Northwoods Lodge – although Olaf and Floyd wouldn’t know about it for a day or two.

The dog was floundering and nearly spent but Olaf and Floyd managed to lug the thrashing beast aboard without upsetting the boat. The dog laid right down, so exhausted it Was, and Olaf had to lift him into his car when the returned to Floyd’s place.

That dog and Olaf would become very devoted to each other. I remember, when I was a kid, I petted the dog thought the window of Olaf’s Model A while Olaf was in Red’s getting a shave. They say it howled and howled when Olaf had his stroke out in the garden and that’s what made the neighbors suspicious about something being wrong. I heard the dog didn’t last long after they took Olaf away to the state hospital.

The day after he rescued the dog Olaf ran into town to get some dry goods at the Co-op Store and to inquire about anyone missing a dog. By this time he was attached to the animal and was holding his breath so to speak, in hope that it was abandoned and not some family’s missing pet. It did turn out to be the latter, but Floyd didn’t have to worry at all because it seems the family was missing too.

Before Olaf made it into the store he ran into Miles Reed, the Game Warden back then. Olaf had so much on his mind that he didn’t notice all the commotion down at the town landing: the Sheriff’s cars and the newspapermen and other gawkers all just milling about and sniffing around. Miles told him about the family of vacationers that were missing from Northwoods Lodge and Olaf’s new dog matched the description of the one the people had with them. Later Pyle, the old man himself, the founding father of Northwoods Lodge, would identify the dog as being the same one the people had with them when they came to stay at the Lodge.

 

I’m going to leave Olaf for now, as far as I can tell he doesn’t figure in the rest of the story, except that I see by some of my old clippings here that he was interviewed by the papers about finding the family’s dog. I think Olaf was a bit anxious too, fearing that some relative would show up and claim the dog he saved.

The day before Floyd and Olaf found the dog, or the dog found them, the family had hired a boat from Northwoods Lodge where they were vacationing. In those days the Lodge would send its launch to town to pick up the vacationers. These guests would travel up form Duluth, the Twin Cities, or sometimes as far away as Chicago, with the idea of spending time on the lake. These well-to-do folks would have very little contact with us in town. The Lodge catered to their every need and from what I have heard it was a pretty swanky set up.

You can say a lot about old man Pyle but you could never say he wasn’t sharp. Even at the depths of The Depression his business continued and the people he employed still had their jobs. Although it was different kind of guest he catered to then. From what I understand, the visitors were not of so much interest in a Northwoods retreat as they were in private locations close to the Canadian border. It was a night time business then, with launches sneaking between float planes and waiting trucks.

Anyhow, this particular family took their rented boat to one of the many islands on the lake with plans of having a picnic. According to the newspapers they did have the picnic, the baskets packed for them at the Lodge were empty and the blankets were spread. The boat was still nosed into the shore where the searchers found it. What they didn’t find was any trace of what happened to the family. At least until they called in the hounds.

Some of the islands on this lake can be really spooky. They can make a person jumpy, make the hairs stand at attention on your arms. At least they have done that to me. On them I’ve seen plants and rocks and worms and things that you just don’t normally see on the shore. There are trees on Big Barnum that would shame those virgin pineries I saw in my fledging logging days on the last of The Littlefork Drives. When I try to describe these places, even to myself, all I can say is that they feel kind of ancient. On some of these islands time itself seems to move at a strange pace, and the veil of vines that stitches the thickets to the heavy canopy above, as well as the overpowering silence, makes it impossible to penetrate their secrets. I’ve walked the very same island where the doomed family last tread. But it was years later, after the place had claimed another victim, and I made sure my feet did not stray too near the place of spongy earth.

At least that is what Chuck Eagleheart told me his ancestors called it. Chuck used a long and musical sounding name but I could never get my tongue around much of the Ojibway lingo anyhow. I think the name, “The Place of Spongy Earth” does capture the spirit of the region as well as any English I’ve run across. That is exactly what the place is too. It isn’t quicksand or muskeg…it looks kind of mossy. The time I was out there I saw Jimmy Salo creep up to the edge – and the edges are not so easy to see mind you – and he poked a big branch through it. The earth seemed to kind of snatch at the branch and it startled Jimmy. He yelped and jerked backwards, slipping on the grass while the stick came flying out with a slurping, sucking sound. His feet just about slid into the stuff too. We lugged him back and away and when we looked at the place where he had jabbed the stick it was sealing back up, leaving only a small wound where the surface had been pierced.

That island search party I mentioned was about to give up the family for lost when a hound went right through. I guess they heard him howl down there for a while afterwards too. Funny how that family was later joined by a dog, just not their own. So that seemed to be the end of it, at least until the family began to show up again.

 

I was a boy of about 10 years old when all this was going on and I was curious about it too. Sure, there was a lot of hot air blowing about the events then, but as far as I know I’ve laid them all out pretty accurately so far. The next part of the story is straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. I was in Red’s Barbershop when Sid Baker told Red, and thus everyone there, about what he found behind his barn.

I’ve noticed some things in my time. When a man is seeking forgiveness or redemption, he’ll go to the clergy. When he seeks approval, he’ll go to a bartender. But when a man needs to understand something, he’ll go to the barbershop. And Red was a master at dragging things towards the light of day too. The funny thing is that nobody knew that much about Red himself, except for the stuff that everybody knew. Like he was from Sauk Centre and his brother was that famous writer. That topic was strictly off limits with Red. He didn’t like his brother much, I guess. From what I heard his brother wasn’t too likeable anyway and I didn’t think a lot of his books weren’t that hot except the one about the preacher.

Sid was hardly in the chair before Red had begun to open him up about all the fuss that had been going on at his farm earlier in the week. Although I was young, I could see it didn’t take much prying because Sid was shook up. He picked at the hairs collecting on the sheet Red had put around him. I saw his hands were trembling and I think his eyes were tearing up. Like I say I was a kid, but I was an old enough to feel sorry for Sid. Sure, I felt damn lucky to be there to hear the straight scoop, it was like being told a fantastic story but, I felt guilt too because I knew Sid was haunted by what he went through.

He said he had been down at the barn, about to separate the cream one morning when the screaming began. At first he couldn’t believe his ears, later it was his eyes he would doubt. The screaming was coming from behind the barn. “It sounded like a woman,” he said, “and she was just screaming and screaming. I just about upset the milk bucket it started so fast. I ran back of the barn and there was nobody there.”

He took a ragged sounding breath and puffed it out. Looking at us all lined up along the wall in those old theater chairs, he continued, “The screaming just went higher and higher, winding up so tight it sounded as if the poor thing’s throat would burst.”

He turned away and gazed out the window, looking into the distance. For our part we were occupying our own eyes with anything but looking at Sid’s. All of us were finding things terribly interesting in the sports page, or the funny papers or whatever we had picked up when we sat down. Red was behind Sid so he didn’t have to look at him either. Nothing makes a man more uncomfortable than to be facing another man who is threatening to cry. Except for maybe being around a helpless child.

And that’s exactly what Sid found that day he heard the screams. He said there was nobody behind the barn, but an awful shrieking was coming from somewhere. He said, “I looked up in the trees and back up at the barn and then I realized the screaming was coming from the ground.”

He told us he there was an old abandoned well back there, not ever of much use. He ran to it and listened. Tearing at the air in front of him with his big hands, Sid demonstrated how he pried up the planks so he could peer down into the well. Red paused with scissors poised just behind Sid’s ear as Sid acted this out for us. Red had probably reached the point where there was not much left to trim so he was just going through the motions anyway, to allow for the full tale to come out.

He said when he finally got enough light through the opening he saw a child down there. “I tried to quiet her but the screaming just kept up,” he said, “And coming out of that well it echoed and grew until I almost put my hands over my ears. I told her to wait and I would get help.”

He shook his big head and a kind of shudder went through him and Red had to quickly draw back the scissors again for fear of jabbing him. “I sent Anna up to Floyd Cotter’s place to call on the phone for the Sheriff. It was awful to awful stand there and listen to that kid go on screaming and splashing around down in there. I tried my best to still her but there was nothing that seemed to work. So finally I set about to finding stuff to rig up a block and tackle with. Pretty soon Anna came back with Floyd, and Harry Kannisto came along with them. By the time the Sheriff got there we were lowering a basket to the kid. The didn’t work because we couldn’t get the kid to understand, so we finally had to hook up Harry and lower him down to grab her.”

At that time I made a mental picture of being lowered into a slimy old well to grab a screaming kid and I shivered. He went on, “You know that took some guts to do that. Harry never even though twice about it. He was the smallest guy there, so it was up to him.”

 He shrugged sending a cascade of white curls to the floor. “Meanwhile the Sheriff gets to thinking that there are no kids missing in the area except for the family on the island last week. So, he sends Floyd to fetch Mr. Pyle up at The Lodge to identify this child in case it was one of those girls that were lost with the family.”

By now Red was just killing time by snipping away at imaginary hairs – Sid never had a bounty of hairs in the first place – while the rest of us weren’t complaining about having to wait extra either. He sniffed and blew his nose on the sheet, without thinking. This, in most instances, would send Red into a fury but not this time. What it did do was leave a mess of white hairs on Sid’s damp cheeks and nose, which he began to pick at while he went on with the story.

“We lowered Harry on that swing seat we rigged out of a board. He just kind of looked back up at us and then he was lost in the dark. The screams continued, without hardly a pause for a breath and the sound of them soon drowned out Harry’s attempts at comforting her. She put up a fight too. She bit him bad but somehow grappled her into a position where he could hang onto her while we lugged them out.”

He laughed; a bitter choked off sound. “We never expected the fight we got when we brought her out to the surface. She went wild. I’ve seen injured and trapped animals but never have I seen anything like that. It took Anna to figure out was wrong and she ran up the house to get strips of an old sheet to wrap around the girl’s head. It was the light, you see, she couldn’t stand the light!”

He sneezed sending another cloud of fine white hairs into the air. “The cloths helped some I guess, but the screams and fighting carried on. We brought her towards the house and confined her in a sheet as much as possible. Anna tried to give her some food but it was like she couldn’t hear us.”

He paused and plucked at some hair. “About this time the Floyd came back with Tom Pyle and Tom said it was sure enough one of those two girls. He had to really look close because of the mud on her and the fact she wouldn’t hold still. Her clothes were all tattered up and she had lost all her coloring. She was sickly pale. ‘A ghost’ is what Anna said and I think she was right too.” He paused, “That is exactly what she was.”

“They bound her up into the car and the Sheriff took her to the state hospital. I could hear her screaming all the way down the road…never did stop is what I’ve been told.”

He nodded in a kind of far-off way and said, “You know, me and Anna will adopt her, if they give us a chance…I guess it broke our hearts to hear her scream so. We just couldn’t get that noise out of our heads for a while.”

I’m sure Sid was sincere about that too. For that I still admire him. At about his age I could’ve never imagined taking on the responsibility of another child. I can’t guess how old Sid and Anna were back then. Everyone seems so old when you’re a kid, but I know their own children were grown and on their own by the time they discovered that girl in the well. I suppose in the end it didn’t matter, the child perished in that hospital.

“Tom Pyle couldn’t get over it,” he said that day in Red’s “He just kept muttering and pacing. He asked me how a child could swim all the way form an island and then blunder 5 or 6 mile through the woods and fall into my well?”

“I just told him,” And then he froze us all with a defiant look, “She didn’t fall down into the well, you fool, she came up in it.”

That’s what Sid believed anyhow, and he wasn’t alone. In fact, her and Anna kept a lantern lowered in that well for a while, just in case the rest of the family would arrive. They didn’t have to tend the lantern long though; the rest of the family did arrive…just not in the well.

 

I suspect that some of the world’s most amazing spectacles go unreported. It seems like fate sometimes reveals fantastic things to those who are engaged in illegal of immoral pursuits. For instance, when Leo Maie and Archie Dean got so badly scalded that time. It wasn’t because the radiator blew on Leo’s big Autocar log truck like they claimed.

And it wasn’t from their moonshine still as everyone suspected. Archie told my dad that they were out tending an illegal gillnet when something big and hot and terribly fast shot down from the sky into Sugar Bay. They were instantly steamed in the vapors and thank goodness the boat overturned because the water kept them from being parboiled. I guess something cooked them on the inside though, because they died a day apart and neither of them had a hair left on their heads and they were a mess of sores too. They only lasted about a year after that fireball came down.

Because of the fear of incriminating themselves, the ne’er-do-wells keep their mouths shut. If they are smart. Even though Hub Moe was the former he would never be accused of being the latter. I’m told that, down at Hannk’s Bar, he even boasted about spearing the woman, the mother from the island. He thought she was a sturgeon or a monster pike that had cruised through his lantern shine one night, just below the dam. He thought he was quite a celebrity for a while there, even though he was arrested for the spearing. He was smart enough to figure out who the woman was and he ran straight to the authorities. He wasn’t smart enough to figure out the predicament he would up in: Jail. Again.

When the Sheriff and the others arrived, it was nearly sunrise. The found the mother where Hub left her. They didn’t have to drag for the father or the daughter. Their bodies were swirling around in the rolling currents by the dam. A day or two late nosey gawkers would spy the poor hound that had led the searchers to the unholy place on the island.

So, to everyone’s relief, especially the Sheriff’s, all the victims were accounted for. Not all the questions would be answered but those that remained did not need answers. Nobody would ask the questions again for fifty years. It would take that long before anyone had a reason to ask.

 

Just a few scattered posts were all that were left of the fence Tom Pyle had built around the spongy earth fifty some years before. That’s all of it I could see of it when I was on that island. Fifty years is a lot to ask of any fence and especially one in an area like that. Maybe someone should’ve kept the fence and sign up. Just shows how comfortable people can get with danger close by. There’s a chain link fence around the area now. Too late to save the woman. It would have not been enough to save the man.

I was on the island the day the lady disappeared. She was an artist. Her husband was an artist with the flyrod and he dropped her off on the island in the morning He went to fish, she went to paint. When he returned later she was gone, and I don’t think he ever saw he again. He was hysterical when he returned to Birch Wood Lodge. By the time Sheriff Hauger had lumbered over there it was pretty well determined what had happened to her.

I was fishing with my grandson Danny that Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful June day too. Seeing all the commotion over there I managed to troll near the island, recognized Jack MacGregor’s pontoon tied up there so we went ashore ourselves. Jack helped us land and filled us in on how the husband had discovered the wife missing. And how the speculation was that she had fallen through the “Fool’s ground.”

This was the time when I saw young Jimmy Salo just about go through to the other side. It was when I first laid eyes on the lady’s husband – and he was wild too. He was beside himself and the deputy had to hold him back. I just wanted to get out of there by then. Jack looked at me and shook his head sadly.

We had no business to be there and it was nothing for a kid to see. The whole place felt funny. It was bewildering: familiar faces gaping at a stranger experiencing such grief. The sheriff’s boat dragging along though the still water. The slow plane circling overhead against a blue sky decorated with fluffy clouds, like the kind of sky a kid would draw with crayons. And the island itself, which seemed to be shuddering. It felt like we were walking on one of those swinging bridges. It trembled.

I did stop for a moment on our way off that godforsaken place, and that was to look at the painting she was working on before she disappeared. It was just sitting by itself on one of those easels. No one was paying it any mind and I felt like I was snooping in some private place as I stood their looking at her last work. I have never looked at a painting the same way since. She was painting lichen, just a patch of later, lichen on a stone there. At that time I didn’t know a thing about lichen. I looked up it in the encyclopedia afterwards. Do you know how old lichen is? How long it takes to grow even a quarter of an inch? There are places on these islands that seem to be carpeted with it. And I never thought it could be so pretty to look at. Her painting that day kind of revealed it to me. It shocked me that someone could devote so much attention to such a little thing as lichen. I take more time studying paintings since that day, for instance: Roy Lichtenstein’s. I found him on the same page in the encyclopedia as lichen.

 

Sherrif Buddy Hauger and his boys had to haul the husband off the island. Not before he did some exploring though. He was a curious and a smart man, a college professor in St. Cloud. Jack Mac told me that before they drug him off of there, he asked them all to shut up for a while. Real quietly he then proceeded to stalk up alongside that treacherous ground. He had borrowed one of the sherif’s big gaff hooks from the boat and he quietly stuck it through the surface. Jack said the main tried to poke it around under the surface and hold it there for a while and everyone thought he had lost his mind. He said it looked like it was hard for him to hang onto the shaft and suddenly he let go of it and he put his fingers to his lips. Damn if they didn’t hear a tiny splash a few seconds later. Jack said the man looked oddly satisfied after that.

His was not a man who would give up easily. He went to the newspaper offices and read everything available about the missing family of 1928. He hounded old timers on the street for details about that incident. He could be seen pacing the riverbank below the dam, waiting on her. He stayed on at the resort and mapped the island. And when the neighbors reported seeing a car at the old abandoned Sid Baker place, Sheriff Hauger’s boys found him in Sid’s well. He had dug down through about 6 feet of the stones that Sid had filled that well up with after the girl died.

It must be terrible to lose a loved one. It must be worse yet when you are not sure. It was taking its toll on the poor guy. He was looking kind of rough, covered in mud and slime from his rooting around in the river bank. He wasn’t shaving or paying much attention to his appearance at all. Most of the time he’d be down by the dam, squinting down into the water or prowling the banks like a wild animal. And just when folks were becoming uneasy about him, he vanished. It wouldn’t be the last time he vanished.

I was alarmed when I did not see him on the river bank. One morning at the café I saw Joe Hurley at the lunch counter. I asked him if “The Mudman” – which is what everybody was calling him by then – was still staying out at his resort.

“No,” Joe had said, “He paid up and left without a word. It seemed like he was already a million miles away.”

Joe anticipated my next question, “He left the cabin spotless too.”

I had been thinking about him a lot, I guess. I found it strange that he would leave so abruptly. I’d gotten used to seeing his car parked down by the dam and him pacing the bank. Sometimes he’d be there at night with a spotlight from his car, sweeping it back and forth across the churning flow. I was hoping he’d find her down there and this sad story would have an end. When he left it felt to me as if something had remained unfinished. Of course, at that time I was only involved as a curious bystander. That feeling of something left undone became much stronger after I became personally involved. In fact, it lingers to this day.

 

The man did return, probably a week or so later. He startled me on his return. You might say he had a knack for doing that to me. I had filled up my pickup with gas and was just leaving the station. As I was stuffing my wallet back in my pocket, I collided with a fellow coming in the door. I stepped aside and glanced at this stranger and it was none other than The Mudman himself. I jumped, like I had been jolted because I had just been thinking about him. The shock of recognition caused me to blurt out a too cheery, “Hello There!”

He stepped side and muttered a quiet “Hello.” He looked at me curiously, as if he was struggling to recall why I might be acting like a long-lost friend. He nodded and made his way to the cash register. Felling awkward, I made my way to my pickup.

While I was talking with the kid that was filling up my pickup a few minutes before, a big R.V. had pulled in. This is a busy town in the summer and gas stations, particularly, are teeming with stranger and visitors and the like, so I paid this R.V. no mind.

Now I watched as The Mudman left the station and returned to the R.V. He conferred there with another young fellow who was packing supplies into compartments alongside the vehicle. I noticed ropes and harnesses and all manner of sophisticated gear in those compartments, as well as some kind of derrick or hoist strapped to the rack on top. Both men looked fit and The Mudman himself appeared to be clean and purposeful.

I was eager to share this news with my friend Jack MacGregor, who had also taken an interest in The Mudman. Later that day, when I stopped at this place, I was not surprised to find that Jack already knew far more about The Mudman’s return than I did. I wasn’t surprised because Jack was like that. He could be depended upon to know things about people. And he could accomplish this without ever appearing nosey. I swear that even though he had retired on the lake and hadn’t lived there his whole life like me, he knew more about the town and the area than I ever did. He was never a gossip, but you could always count on him to flush out the truth on a subject.

He had intuition, you might say. I, for instance, take everything at face value for too much. Although this has served me well and I haven’t mourned the lack of insight, I suppose I do miss out on a lot. But I have concluded that what I miss usually wouldn’t make me any happier to know anyway, so I don’t fret about it.

Anyway, he filled me in. Jack had one of the first big aluminum pontoons on the lake, and those men had come out to his place that afternoon to hire it. They had made a generous offer to rent it. Jack, having time to kill and more curiosity than he ever needed, agreed to the terms, but only on the condition that he be the skipper. Jack said they considered this for a while and then agreed. They also asked Jack’s help in hiring some laborers, “Some high school kids with time on their hands.”

Jack rubbed his hands together. “I smell an adventure!” He strode about puffing on his stogie. “Tomorrow we ship off for the island, bright and early. Looks to me like it’s gonna take a few trips too.” He took out his cigar and drew an arc in the air. “You would never believe all the stuff they got. They’re gonna explore that hole and find his wife!”

At the time I was astonished. I could not imagine how anyone could do it. He leaned towards me, he shot a glance about and under his breath he whispered, “It looks to me like they have one of those Lloyd Bridges frogman suits!”

He slapped his leg and laughed. “Can you one believe it? They’re gonna swim around underneath the Fool’s Ground. An I’m gonna be there skippering!” He shook his head in amazement, “I’m going to pilot a mission of discovery!”

He liked National Geographic and I could see he was delighted with the pending expedition. “Come here,” he tilted his head, “I got to show you something.”

We walked over to his pickup and there, on the seat, was a yellow plastic box. “Would you look at this?” He opened the clasps and swung the lid open. Inside were 4 brand new Timex watches all set to the proper time, all arranged neatly in compartments and each was inside a little plastic bag. In each bag was a pencil and a small tablet, and in the bottom tray was a stack of twenty-dollar bills.

I said, “What’s that for?”

He withdrew his cigar and shook his head. He looked down at the box and sighed, “I don’t know…they didn’t tell me but, I’m supposed to find 4 guys to wear these watches before Friday. They’ll each get a twenty for wearing the watches and they’ll each get another twenty Friday night if they follow directions. And they get to keep the watches!”

He poked his cigar back in his mouth and chewed on it. “I don’t know what they’re up to,” he scratched at his freckled head, “But I’m going to find out I guess.”

 

I’ve never been one to use the telephone much. It makes me too restless. I feel like I’m wasting time. So it was later in the week before I crossed paths with Jack again. I had contrived some type of excuse to run into town that night and as I slowly passed Jack’s place, I noticed lights on in his building. I quickly turned into his driveway and sped up to the garage.

He was unloading some gas tanks from his truck and I helped him lug them down to his boat. I didn’t want to seem nosey and Jack saved me the trouble of having to ask about his expedition. As we descended the steps to his boat he began, “Well everything’s set. I just got back from town and everybody has their watches and instructions.”

I climbed into his boat and hung over the back while he handed me the gas cans. It was a back breaking task, stretching over the rails and wiggling those tanks down into place. Jack being older than me, I naturally took the hardest job. While I was hitching up the lines he continued. “Tomorrow Dr. Reuter descends into the Fool’s Ground.”

“Who’s Dr. Reuter?” slowly dawning on the name.

“He’d be The Mudman.” Jack panted.

Reuter was the guy’s name alright. I remembered it from the papers. I just didn’t ever think of him as a doctor is all. I did know his wife and him were college professors, so I allowed that did make them doctors. And I remember people in town squawking about how the “Misses had a different name form the husband.” At that time I probably couldn’t have recalled her name either. I’m lousy with names. Just too lazy I guess. It would make a great deal more sense if I’d remember right off, rather than having to go through all the work of faking it until I can somehow get a person to tip their hand.

Anyhow, Jack was leaning onto the railing and struggling for air. It’s tough work hauling the tanks down those steps and especially so when its slippery, like in the evening, and your toes have to grip through your shoes for extra traction. He was a purple silhouette against the remnants of another beautiful sunset. He was wheezing slightly.

“Tomorrow Dr. Reuter will put on the frogman outfit and go below. He was practicing with it in the lake today. Lucky for him too ‘cause that way he missed out on the heavy work me and Dr. Strand were doing.”

He looked pretty spent. I guessed these had been long days for Jack.

“I can’t figure these guys out. They spend more time discussing and arguing than they would ever dream of spending in actually accomplishing something. They’re running me ragged, I’ll tell you.”

He reached down and opened the gait to the boat. He shuffled over and sank down into the captain’s chair. He put his feet up on the rail. “And Dr. Reuter, I think he might be a little off his rocker. Sometimes I have to tell him a thing two or three times before it will stick and even then he’s still kind of foggy. He just stands there by “The Membrane” – that’s what they call the Fools Ground and stares down at it as if he can see right through it.”

I was getting a little impatient, I wasn’t surprised that these fellows were difficult to figure out, but what I wanted to know was what their plans were.

“So, what’s Dr. Reuter gonna do down there?” I asked.

He shrugged, “Look around, take readings, measure things, I guess. Lord knows they measure everything else.”

“But how’s he getting down there? I mean, won’t he get lost in the slime and the goo or whatever? How’s he gonna see?”

“Well,” he leaned back and laced his hands behind his head, “He’s gonna have a big light strapped on his head.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “You know, there is no slime or goo down there. They’ve already found out that it’s hollow. They’ve dropped ‘probes’ and those probe things tell them it’s about 40 feet down to the water and the water is flowing east. It’s an underground river and they tell me it comes up in springs and lakes and rivers around here.”

I remembered how the Sheriff’s gaff had splashed when Dr. Reuter dropped it through on the evening his wife disappeared. It didn’t sound too outlandish to me. I asked about the watches.

That brought him to, a bit. He leaned forward, “Now that’s pretty clever. I just got back from rounding up 4 teenagers to stand on different places along the river bank all day tomorrow with their new watches on. Reuter’s going down there with cannisters of dye: bright red, bright orange, bright yellow and bright green. These kids are gonna be watchin’ the water along the river. They’ll be posted from the lake to down about a mile below the dam. If Dr. Reuter is able to walk around down there, explore and so on, and if he finds that the underground river goes into a hole or branches out or something, he’ll release a cannister of the ink and mark down the time. Then if one of those kids sees a slug of that dye surface, or go floating by, he’s supposed to mark down the time on his little tablet so Reuter can tell how long it takes for that river to flow between where he let go of the dye and when the kid saw it. Someday they hope to bring enough air down there to go all the way through to the other side.”

“You’re kidding.” I said. But I already knew that it fit pretty well with the rest of the scheme. “What if he gets stuck or the current is too strong?”

We have a hoist. I assembled the thing myself because those two nitwits wouldn’t know which side of a nut a washer goes on. Anyhow, we’ll hoist him down in a harness. He’ll undo himself if he can stand, or walk around, you know, navigate. If he can’t he’ll just dangle there awhile, I guess, look around, then jerk the line a couple of ties and we’ll hoist him back up. And if he does go snooping around, the line has a light on it to guide him back.”

He leaned back in his chair and swiveled to face a thin crescent of new moon perched in the western sky. He began to tap his foot, one of his habits when he was nervous or concentrating. The sound of it carried through the boat like a drum and the vibrations caused little pulses of waves to fan out across the glassy surface below. In the distance loons were calling. “I got a funny feeling.” He sighed and shook his head, “I wonder about these guys…I don’t know about tomorrow.”

 

Very early the next morning, on my way to work, I saw one of those kids standing along the river below the dam, just as Jack had said. It was one of the Drake boys and he was holding a little transistor radio to the side of his head. It looked like it was going to be a long day.

It was a long day. On my way home from work he was still there. He was examining the little radio, shaking it and holding it again to his ear. I scanned the water for some kind of stain but saw nothing. I didn’t see anything at Jack’s place either.

I busied myself around my place for a while but finally decided it was time. I loaded up Jack’s daughter’s old bike into the back of my pickup. I had completely rebuilt the thing, painted it and everything. Jack wanted to have it in shape for his grandkids to use when they visited. The job had been finished for a while and I was waiting for the right time to deliver it. Well, it looked like the right time had come. It’s always good to have a reason.

The reason came in mighty handy too when Sheriff Buddy Hauger whirled on me and growled, “What are you doing here?”

I stammered something about the bike, pointing to the back of my truck. But before I could finish, he was glaring at Dr. Strand, and Jack, again. A deputy was leaning on a cop car smirking at my discomfort. As quickly as I dropped out of the sheriff’s sights, the deputy became the new target.

“Well?” Sherriff Hauger bellowed at him.

The grin disappeared and he snapped to attention, “Well what sir?”

“Well,” he snarled, “Why don’t you take YOUR butt OFF that car and put it IN that car and go get those kids who are, by now, freezing their OWN butts down there in the dark on the river bank?”

The car shot out of there in a cloud of dust and swirling lights.

He whirled back to Dr. Strand. He shook a piece of paper in the doctor’s face. “So this is all we got? You guys lower a man, an obviously disturbed man, down into that quicksand and he writes this note back saying he won’t come back out?”

Dr. Strand was fiddling with his beard, blinking behind his glasses. “Actually, Sheriff, it is not quicksand, you see…”

Jack rolled his eyes at me as the sheriff seemed to swell up to an enormous size. He roared, “I don’t care what it is you little pointy-headed Poindexter.” He clutched his fist around the scrap of paper and shook it in Dr. Strand’s face. “I should make you put on one of those fancy suits and go down there and get him, but you know what?”

Dr. Strand cleared his throat, “Well actually Sheriff, we don’t have another SCUBA sui…”

“I’ll tell you what,” Sherriff Hauger continued, now ignoring the Dr., “Then I’d have TWO missing overeducated idiots here in my county. I’m not about to risk the lives of my men or the taxpayer’s money in searching for you ‘colleague.” But what we are going to do is get some equipment together and Jack is gonna run us out to the island, right now, so we can do what we can to make sure this guy can find his way out…if he changes his mind.”

At that he stormed over to his car and picked up his radio began calling instructions and orders to his deputies. I raised an eyebrow at Jack. He shook his head quickly. The Sheriff marched both of them off towards the boat.

 

The next day I brought the bicycle over to Jack’s house again. Somehow I had forgot to unload it the night before. Jack was about to carry the fuel tanks down to the boat. I helped again. This time Jack was angry, as well as tired.

“I don’t know how I get mixed up in these things,” he grumbled, “Now I have to go out to the island every day, rain or shine, and hoist up the cable, change the batteries in the lantern, check the supplies and the notepad and wind it all back down again.”

I noticed a big 2-way radio set in his boat. He followed my gaze. “The Sheriff’s.” he said. “If the absent-minded professor decides he wants to come back up, I have to call the Sheriff and he’ll send out the cavalry.”

I handed him over the sack containing batteries and some food. He fired up the outboard. I cast off the lines and pushed him away from the dock. He took out his cigar and waved it at the bag. “I even have to pay for this stuff.” He shook his head in sad disbelief. Pushing the throttle forward he took off for the island.

Sheriff Hauger insisted upon Jack’s daily visits to the island for 2 weeks. An unfair sentence in Jack’s estimation and he went to his lawyer about it too. The Sheriff dropped it at that pinot. He did feel compelled to send a deputy out there every day or two for a while, until the erected the chain-link, placed the warning signs and dismantled the hoist entirely.

 

One evening, soon after he finished his “mercy missions” Jack stopped over for a cocktail. We sat out on the dock while he told me what happened on the island. Jack said that Dr. Rueter seemed more distracted than ever that day, quiet and edgy. He said they helped him into his frogman outfit and he waddled over to the edge of the “mossy scab.”

Jack said they connected him to the cables with snap hooks and a harness rig and set drag on the winch. Holding onto the line Dr. Reuter slowly leaned over the spot and went through, rearend first.

“He never waved or anything, never even looked back. No thumbs up and no goodbyes for any of us. I was scared, I was already regretting ever getting involved with these two, but not as much as I would regret it later that day, or over the next couple of weeks for that matter.”

He took a sip out of his martini and relit his cigar. “You know, even then I had a feeling we wouldn’t see him again. We slowly lowered him down and when we were near the mark that showed us where the bottom was supposed to be he pulled on the signal line indicating he was going to hang there awhile and study the situation. Nearly right away he gave another pull and we lowered him again, this time a dozen feet or so. The line went slack and he tugged on the signal line twice to tell us all as well and he was going to unfastened himself form the line.”

He savored a big pull on his cigar and then he shook out his match. “I spent the entire day there with that boring Dr. Strand. He wrote in a notebook all day long while I held the signal line. By noon I was concerned because no tugs had been sent up from below.” He tilted his head back and puffed a satisfied cloud of smoke towards the sky. “Three tugs. That was going to be it. Three tugs means I’m ready to get hauled back up. When it was getting on towards four in the afternoon, I told Dr. Strand I was getting worried”

Jack swirled his drink, “You know, I think he just about asked me what I was worried about. He seemed to have forgotten all about Dr. Reuter being down there. He laughed at me when I said that Dr. Reuter must be out of air by then.”

Jack began to mimic Dr. Strand. If anyone had the gift for mimicry it was him. He held his head tilted to the side and began fluttering his eyelids. He adjusted an imaginary pair of glasses and twitched his cheeks like he was permanently biting into something disgusting. He scratched at a pretend beard and he spoke in the pressured style of Dr. Strand: “Jack, there’s air down there.” Sniffing and speaking slowly and deliberately, as if to a child, he continued his impersonation. “If he had to rely on those tanks, he would’ve depleted them hours ago! Dr. Reuter is a fine scientist and we certainly will be hearing form him again.”

Jack looked down into his drink. “I always hated the way that guy talked to me, like I was an infant or something.” He sighed jabbing a toothpick through an olive.

“So I was just getting desperate when the tugs came on the line. I jumped over to the winch and waited for Dr. Strand to mark the spot in his notebook, place it in his pack, smooth out his vest and stroll over. Right away I knew something was wrong though. The winding felt too light. There was nothing there. When we cranked the end through ‘the membrane’ all that was attached was a pouch Dr. Reuter took down with him.”

“Inside we found his notebook and the notes he took while he was down there. It listed when and where he released the colors and there were maps and diagrams and other lingo I couldn’t digest. Not that Dr. Strand gave me much time to look at it. He barely even glanced at the other sheet of paper that was in the pouch.”

Jack shifted his metal lawn chair; they can hurt your butt after a while. His eyes followed the distant lights of a cruising runabout. “That was the paper you saw Sheriff Hauger waving around. I don’t know why I was so stunned when I read it. In a way I saw it coming.”

Raising his chin in the air, he avoided connecting his eyes with mine. Suddenly he was now the likeness of Dr. Reuter. He recited the words from the sheet, clipping them in midair the way Dr. Reuter would’ve done had he been there to read his own message: “I have made the decision to remain down here and continue my study and my search. Please don’t needlessly risk the lives of others in the vain attempt at my rescue, for I shall elude them, I assure you.”

He shrugged, “I know the exact words by heart because I read them maybe a half dozen times while Dr. Strand was tittering over Dr. Reuter’s notes.”

“I finally got Strand’s attention and showed the note to him,” he spit out the olive pit, it shot out over the lake, “All he said was: ‘We’re finished.’”

Jack and Dr. Strand may have been finished but Dr. Reuter wasn’t.

Neither was I.

 

Tonight, while I write this, I sit in the home my wife and I built in 1963. I look out through this window in front of me and see darkness. Through that darkness, across the lake, is the north shore – nearly 10 miles away. To the east is a point that separates my place here from the quieter waters of a sheltered bay. There is a path that leads across that point. As far as I know it has always been there - it still is – although I find it more difficult to navigate these days. Along the path I encountered The Mudman.

I never could sleep late in the morning. Years of getting up for work have set my own alarm clock. It used to be that, in the early morning, time would pass at a pace that I could still recognize; it wasn’t all gobbled up by concerns. Nowadays I can’t recognize time at all. Days pass as quickly as nights did when I was a child. I remember how I’d wake up then and be amazed that so much time had passed while I was asleep; it seemed as if I had only just closed my eyes. Now I feel that way at the end of the day, and it is the nights that seem to slow down time for me.

When the mornings were nice, I would follow that path across the point, especially on days when I didn’t have to go to work. I had a little bench there on the shore and from it I’d watch the world wake up.  If you’ve ever seen the sunrise over the lake, you don’t need me to tell you what a lovely thing it is to see. And if you’ve never seen it, well, I guess you’ll need a better wordsmith than me to describe it to you.

I would pour myself a mug of coffee and by the time I would get to my bench the coffee would be perfect. Fall was my favorite season then – at least until the duck opener brought all the blasting that would remind me of a cold, wet, scared young man on the beach at Normandy. But on a quiet morning you can feel nature savoring what little time is left as it is putting its house in order and saying goodbyes.

It was one of those fall mornings when I saw Mudman. Along the path there is a spring-fed pond, others springs farther inland contribute to it, and the whole works empties into the bay by way of a little brook. When I passed by that point on this particular day, even thought it was still nearly full dark, I noticed something new. I saw it like a person can sense a change in familiar surroundings before even thinking about it.     

What I had noticed, in, and out of, the corner of my eye, was a white stone in the pond where no rock had ever been before.

I looked towards that rock and as I did I realized that it wasn’t a rock at all. It was a skull. But even before that sunk in, I discovered it wasn’t a skull either. It was a man’s face looking up at me from the surface of the water. And that face wasn’t far from becoming a skull.

Naturally it startled me. I think I shouted and I know I jumped to the side in mid-step, like my wife does when something moves in the grass and she fears it might be a snake. This spilled the hot coffee down the front of my trousers. I began hopping from foot to foot while I plucked the steaming coffee from my pants, trying to pull them away from my scalded skin. While I danced there, shaking at my pants, I asked him, “May I help you?”

Now I don’t know why I said that. As far as I know I’ve never used that phrase before in my entire life and why it came to me then is a mystery. It was a stupid thing to say to a guy who was obviously buried up to his face in a bog and I felt clumsy on account of it. I felt uncomfortable standing there with wet pants in front of a complete stranger anyway. I felt even more uncomfortable when I realized who the stranger was.

I really can’t be blamed for not recognizing him sooner. He had changed to the point where he was now barely an image of how I remembered him. His eyes were sunken deep in their sockets and the black circles below them made his forehead seem to jut out. He had strands of mousey looking hair plastered back along his scalp, and the skin that was stretched over the bones of his face was a sickly pale in color. Looking like a living skull, he fixed his huge pupils on me and replied to my idiotic question.

“No,” he replied in a raspy voice that was either rusty form lack of use or shot from too much. The sound of it along with the snapping action of his jaw made the hairs on my arms prickle up.

How was I was going to get him out of there? Do I call the Sherriff, should I jump in, should I look for a pole? But, on the other hand, I was thinking he didn’t look like he was in need of being saved, or anxious to have it done. Finally I decided that perhaps I should at least offer.

“What should I do?” was my lame offering.

He had been looking straight up and he again rolled his eyes towards me. He tilted his head a bit and croaked, “What do you mean?”

Please understand me when I say there was a face in the pond. His head wasn’t sticking up out of the water – only his face, as if he were standing on something below the surface with his face turned upwards to the sky. When he tilted his head towards me, it looked like I was speaking with a severed human head lolling about on the dark water.

I was stammering and feeling clumsy, “I mean I’ll save you, you know, if I can find a pole or call the cops or something.”

“I don’t need to be saved.” he murmured, he was looking up at the sky again.

I was feeling mighty embarrassed.  It is not natural to be speaking down to a man like that, it felt odd talking with somebody who was at my feet, so to speak. I didn’t know if I should crouch down or kneel or try to sit. I felt an urge to get out of there but felt that would be rude too. So, I just stood there.

A skeletal arm emerged; he was holding a stalk – maybe a lily pad root. He brought it to his mouth and chewed out a small chunk. I could clearly hear his teeth grinding as he chewed. The action of his jaw sent out rippling wave of motions under his skin. I could see cords tighten and release, bulging up on his temples and quivering below his chin. He grimaced when he swallowed, twisting his head a little as he did so, and his eyes rolled back up under his lids. I think his throat was maybe sore. His eyelids flickered.

I shuddered and he noticed.

“You’re cold,” he looked back up at the sky, “Maybe it’s your wet pants.’

My pants were making me cold but that’s not why I was trembling. I suspected that he knew that too and that made me even more self-conscious. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I began smoothing out my pants again like a schoolgirl smoothing out her prom dress.

“That’s it!” I answered with too much enthusiasm.

A thin white claw emerged and he gaped his mouth open. He began to toggle a loose tooth back and forth. He rolled his eyes towards me while keeping his face to the sky.

“You haven’t any news about my wife?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said. I regretted answering too fast. This was an admission that I knew who he was, before according him the respect of introduction. It made me feel uneasy.

“I didn’t think so.”  he squawked, “I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground.”

I thought it was a was a joke but I didn’t know if I should laugh. He rolled his eyes up to focus on something over my head.

“Outstanding,” he whispered.

I turned and looked back over my shoulder. Even though the sky was becoming light, The Pleiades were still visible, framed by a gap in the trees.

“Yes,” I agreed. Even though I didn’t care to look back in his direction again, I turned towards him since it felt rude to speak to someone without facing them. Right away I regretted looking down at him because now he was wincing, his face was twisted like he was in pain. I thought he was going to cry.

This frightened me even more. I wouldn’t know how to begin to offer a complete stranger proper comfort. Worse yet, I was beginning to fear he was crying because The Seven Siters above were so beautiful. Having to stand there looking down at a complete stranger who was weeping about something beautiful – a grown man besides, would’ve been beyond my compacity. I might’ve been able to deal with a man stuck in the mud and weeping in sorrow.

I was reaching for my handkerchief, already wondering how I was going to toss it too him, when he put an end to my dilemma.

“I best be on my way now,” he rasped, he squinted up at me and nodded, “Everything’s too bright up here.”

He sucked in a great breath of air, puffing up his hollow cheeks into huge balloons. This made his eyes look like they were bugging out. With his eyes bulging open, he sunk below the surface, leaving only a small ring of ripples spreading across the pond. I stood there slowly waving at the spot where he went under, wondering if I should be insulted by that last remark.

 

I never saw The Mudman again after that. As far as I know nobody else did either. Of course, if they were like me, they would never say anything about it. I stood there with my mouth open, staring down into the water. I began to shiver and then I looked around sheepishly, for some reason I was afraid someone had seen what had happened there.

My teeth were chattering on my return home but still I hesitated in the woods for a while. I had to do some figuring. First of all, I asked myself: Did this really happen? I felt pretty sure that it had. I didn’t think I was going crazy. I knew crazy people heard things, like voices, but actually seeing things seemed to me to be in a whole different league. Having visions is for dope fiends or religious fanatics, I reasoned, and I was neither.

My second concern was halfway solved for me. I already knew that my wife Hazel would easily see through any deception, even if I avoided her all day. I’ve seen too many fools tangled up in a web of their own spinning to ever make a practice out of trying to deceive my own wife. I’m not good at being cagey anyhow.

What was worrying me was HOW I was going to tell her. I wanted to present it with some dignity, I didn’t want her to see my wobbly knees. But, try as I might I could not find a matter-of-fact way of bringing up the topic.

She solved these problems for me. When I came through the door she looked up and arched her brows. “What happened to you?” She asked, “It looks to me like you’ve seen a ghost or something.” She searched my face and then looked down at the wet stain in the front of my pants. She said, “I think maybe you did.”

 

That’s almost where this story ends. Until I wrote this down tonight, Hazel was the only one I ever spoke to about it. I returned to the pond for the next few mornings because I felt it would be standoffish not to. Hazel packed up a bundle of food for me and I left it by the pond but the next day I saw the neighbor’s beagle dragging it by. I avoided the path for a while and never passed that spot without at least a quick glance into the pond.

I think old Jack Mac suspected something though. I am especially easy t oread when I am trying not to let on about something. He mentioned a boat ride out to the island once to “Check things out.” I declined too quickly, and complicated things by changing the subject to something he had no interest in whatsoever. He raised his brows and looked at me. I looked away. He was graceful, he changed the subject to something we both were interested in.

Jack and I did have a good laugh once courtesy of The Mudman. We were shooting pool at Hank’s Bar one afternoon, late in that same fall, when one of Hub Moe’s belligerent grandsons came bursting through the door. A loudmouth, he considered himself to be quite the sportsman, doing more than his share of trapping along the Myrtle River. Now he was stomping about the barroom waving the remains of a mink he had trapped in his filthy hands. He cursed his rivals – after making certain they were not present – and vowed that they would pay for their treachery. He raised up the mink so everyone could see. It was stained with brilliant yellow dye.

Jack and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. He scowled at us and, shrugging his grimy orange coat up onto his droopy shoulders, he sulked his way out of the bar.

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

 

                                                                     THE END