The Shade Place

By Philip K Edwards

After an early retirement, Evans buys acreage in rural Pennsylvania and, against the advice of others, restores the dilapidated farmhouse. As he digs into the history of this old farm he encounters some colorful characters and uncovers some surprising relationships. Along the way he helps re-unite two old friends as the three of them work together to solve an old mystery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip K Edwards
• Release date: Apr 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452448039

Philip K Edwards

The author was born in Riverdale, Maryland in 1943, graduated with B.S. in engineering from the University of Maryland in 1967. In addition to writing history and fiction he holds patents in video technology and is active in local government. He and his wife Suzanne now reside on their farm in rural Pennsylvania.

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Chapter 1

The Fire

April, 1946

Bertie Shade set out the colored eggs right after she got the stove going and the coffeepot on. It was barely light, almost an hour before the sun would top the ridge and light up the front porch. She had to hide them inside the fence or the old dog Buck would have them before the kids were out of bed. Winter was officially over but spring hadn’t come yet. Under the dry leaves at the fence corners were good places, so were the indents by the cellar windows and under the bench by the pump. The old bucket, upside down, would hold one egg, and the new bucket, hooked on the spigot, would hold another. She would have her lanky husband Len reach up and put a couple under the eaves.

Easter came early in 1946, on April 10, at the tail end of a long, cold winter that wouldn’t quite go away. The woodpile was down to butts and scraps, but at least there was no late snow—yet. Plenty of downed wood yet to be gathered from the woodlot, and none of it wet. She stopped to watch Len as came down the road from the barn swinging a pail of milk. When he got to the gate he stopped and watched her hide the last of the eggs and then followed her inside. He put the milk on the counter and covered it with a cloth.

Len messed some with the fire and nudged the coffeepot a little. Bertie drew a big pan of water from the cistern and put it on the stove near the pot, then she messed some with the fire. Hot water was as necessary as air in this sad old farmhouse. Then she drew a little more water into a smaller pan with some raw potatoes. She carried it over to the long table and sat opposite Len while she peeled at them. Len sat at his place and just watched her.

The room warmed up by inches; Len could feel when it slipped upward from one degree to the next. In January you could hear the walls crack as the plaster unfroze every morning, but by April the walls were holding back the cold pretty well. Pretty soon the coffee boiled over and spit against the cast iron. Len looked at Bertie, then she looked back at him and he was up in a second rambling for the stove. He moved the coffeepot about two inches to the left and it stopped its spitting.

After he got his coffee and spilled a little milk from the bucket into it he put the pot way over on the right and she put the potatoes in its place. He went back to his sitting place while she disappeared down the cellar steps. While she was gone he heard the girls through the floor grate arguing about the night pot. Whichever girl had got up first, usually Hazel, had seen the top was off, and the other, usually Janet was denying she’d left it off. Then the first voice–it was Hazel–suggesting that Janet should just use the outhouse if she couldn’t remember to put the cover back on.

Bertie came up with a peck of apples and set it on the table. Len inspected one and then another for softness, but they’d come through the winter pretty well. When she set herself down at the table and started another kind of peeling he lost interest and turned to look up the drive toward the barn, and beyond it to the Ridge. At this time of year the sun would hit the top of that ridge about five minutes before it hit his front porch. Shortly after he turned to look, the sun lit up the tree ridge like a Christmas tree. He went outside to be there when it hit the porch.

The neighbor DeLong’s small place was such that he could take a short cut through Shade’s to get to town, and he was welcome to do it. But this morning Len knew DeLong would take the road because his woman preferred it that way. They would be on their way by now, it was a long walk, and their church was in town and it was an early church and an all-day church. The Shades would do Easter different. Their kids would hunt eggs, then eat, then go across to church in the village, in their Ford truck: not walk, and not stay all day. He sat in the cold chair and waited for the sun.

While he waited the gray sky colored in layers, getting richer by the minute until there was enough red in it for a sailor to take warning, as his old dad used to say. But nothing bad happened and the red turned to orange, then to just light and then to just bright, too bright to watch directly. The cold left quick as the sun defined itself and the sky turned blue all around it.

It was so quiet that from outside he could hear Hazel moving down the stairs and turning for the kitchen, without her seeing through the glass that he was out there. He wanted to go in at just the right minute to take Hazel by surprise and get the best greeting, but he waited too long and Janet was down too and so there were too many faces and too many voices to go in just then. Then he caught a warm breeze from the east and he knew spring was going to show today.

A short while later he heard Chad stumble down the stairs and then burst out the door, making for the opposite corner of the porch. With his back to his father, he started peeing off the porch. It wasn’t allowed, but he was at it before Len could say anything so Len just watched while he finished.

Then when his son was just at the point of buttoning his pants Len did say, ‘Ahem’ and Chad’s head whipped around. When he saw it was Len he said Jeez, Dad, don’t scare me! and pretended he hadn’t been peeing off the porch. Instead of turning around to face his father, he just gazed off across the pond at the sunrise while he fiddled with his buttons.

Another gust of warmth from the East caught them both in the face and seemed to promise an interesting day.

There was more noise from inside—voices and clatter—and now Hazel appeared at the front door. She didn’t come out, she just spoke through the screen: Mama wants you all in here. She turned away, and man and boy did what they were told.

The kids commenced the egg hunt upon Len’s Ready, set, Go! and it didn’t take long. The kids were spread out in age—each of the younger ones had been a surprise after Len and Bertie thought there’d be no more—and at seventeen, eleven, and now Janet would be eight, they were getting too old for egg hunts now. Everyone wanted the hunt over with, and by now they knew that when a dozen were found, it was. Janet found the last two, and it was with good will that the kids took their places at the long table. They all had a good breakfast, with Bertie taking her place alongside them as she did on a holiday morning. Then it was over and the girls went back upstairs.

A holiday can drag on a man, and a boy, too. Len waited awhile but then he left the kitchen while the pies were taking shape. He took a smoke and wandered out toward the barn. In a minute Chad was walking alongside him. They went on past the barn, though, and when they reached the top of the drive Len lifted his nose into the air. There was a whiff of something organic in the wind, which was now from the south. He almost said, DeLongs left their drum burning; but he didn’t.

He and the boy did the circle walk: along the drive, behind the barn, down to the creek (damp, but not running) up the hill, down to the draw, and back to the house. He tamped out the cigarette before they started up from the dam. It was time to get ready for church.

They all dressed, and dressed well. Neither Len nor Bertie were known for churchiness, but they were known for clean, and it took some time to get presentable. The family members gathered one-by-one in the kitchen, each looking a little out of place. Then, as a group, they trooped out to where the truck was parked under a gnarly old black gum, the only tree in the yard.

Len started sniffing almost immediately he was out of the door. He looked first left and then right, almost as though he had forgot something, then wandered off toward a corner of the house.

The others went along to the truck and began to arrange themselves, Bertie and Hazel in the seat, Chad and Janet in the back. But Len had heard or seen or smelt or sensed something wrong, and when they looked back for him he was disappearing around the corner of the house with some purpose in his walk. He was absent for a full minute, but when they were about to go after him he appeared at the far corner. He called out, Chad. C’mere. Chad knew from the tone and the terseness that the summons was important, and he complied immediately.

Len put a hand on Chad’s shoulder, like when he wanted Chad to concentrate. There’s something burning. I’m going down the DeLong’s’. I want you to go ‘cross the creek to the church. If you see anything, come back pronto. Tell your mother we’re checking for a fire. Hear me? Chad nodded to his dad and left in the direction of the house. The dog raised his head for a moment, then put it back down.

Time seemed to stand still as the girls and Bertie waited in the truck. They trusted that there was a reason for the delay, but did not want to participate and possibly stretch it out. Being at church was inevitable, and late was acceptable to them. As the minutes went by, however, being late for no reason was seeming less acceptable and impatience crept into all three. Bertie got out, and even started as if to go to the barn, but held back.

Then Len’s figure appeared at the top of the drive, and he was in a loping run. There’s smoke coming up the draw! he shouted down to her, and when Bertie didn’t understand he shouted it again. There’s smoke coming up the draw, and it’s not from DeLong’s. She thought about it—there were no other houses, no other outbuildings, no open fields, no camps between the Robinson place and theirs. She looked off above the pond to where Chad had disappeared into the woods. As if reading her mind, Len shouted, Where’s Chad? and Bertie lifted a hand across the draw and directed it cross-country toward the church. Send Hazel for him, he panted, I’m going out the trail.

His wife was never so passive as to do exactly what he said, and instead of sending Hazel she started off herself down the hill, across the creek, and up the other side toward the church grounds. She had got a little heavy in the last few years, but she was still a strong woman and she was halfway there she met Chad coming back. She told him, There’s a fire at Robinson’s; your father’s going out the trail. I want you to go down the creek and tell me if you see anything. Go now. He went.

Bertie went back to the truck and told the girls to wait there, they might have to help. She walked fast up the drive past the barn to the cutout for the trail and looked way down it, but she didn’t start off on it, she waited, and she sniffed. There was something there, something in the air, but she couldn’t quite see the fuss of it. She waited a long time, and as time passed she thought she smelled something ominous in the wind, too southeasterly for comfort, and too warm for April.

When Len appeared out of the woodlot back of the house it scared her; he was moving even faster than before, and his face was red and tight as though he were being chased by something. He collected her somehow and she was moving along with him before he could even speak his mind. They were almost to the barn when he got a breath and told her, The woods is on fire. Between us and Robinson’s. The wind is pushing it this way, I think we need to get the cow out of the barn. They went into the barn together and got their lone milk cow, a new one that didn’t have a name yet, loose from the stall and on a short tether. Tie her under the tree, he said very plainly to Bertie, meaning the same tree, the only tree in the front yard, under which they parked the truck.

He started her down the hill with the cow and when he was satisfied he went back to loose the pigs. There was a sow with four sucklers; the little ones ran off a bit but she wouldn’t move, and by and by they started back to where their mother lay. Len had to use his most persuasive words with her, but finally she was up and out of the sty. She had half the woodlot in front of her, and then the road. If a fire came she would go for the road and he was sure that they would follow. He could get them back if it was a false alarm.

By the time Bertie got the cow to the tree there was smoke in the air. You couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from, but it was not from over the ridge; it was local. She began to fret for Chad and was about to send Hazel for him when she spied him crossing the creek, breathing hard now and down to a walk.

He made his way up the hill and reported to Bertie: I didn’t see no fire, but there’s smoke all along the creek. I heard some men talking, but I couldn’t see them and I couldn’t raise them. Come along, she said, and they started toward the house.

Len came down and found the girls were still at the truck. He went to them and said, We can’t leave just now. There’s a fire at the Robinson’s and we might have to help. You all get some different clothes on and see what your Ma needs. He found her in the house putting a few things away. Chad was with her, waiting for some orders. What’d you see, boy? he asked with his head cocked. Chad said, There’s smoke down there, and some men. I didn’t see nothing else.

Len knew his son was winded, but he divided the labor anyway. I’m going ‘cross to the church. I want you to go out the lane and see what you see. He added, I set the pigs loose; watch for ‘em.

Len then went across the same dry creek and up the same hollow toward the church and heard the same men, but he managed to track them down. It was a young Ickes, Little Joe, and one of the Smiths, probably setting traps, he guessed, but when he asked what they were doing they said they had heard there was a fire at the Robinson’s and they were on the way for a look-see. Len said he’d appreciate it if they saw anybody would they let them know that there was also smoke up the DeLong’s hollow.

He could smell, and then see, smoke as he headed back across the creek but he couldn’t tell where the heart of the fire was. There were old hay fields on the high ground, still in grass but these last years dotted with briars and locust. There was a hollow on either side of the high ground. The prevailing winds were from the west, across the ridge, and they would usually push any fire south or southeast, not the other way around. But the memory of a warm breeze this morning against the early chill welled up in Len’s head and suddenly he could imagine there might have been a fire that was behind it.

Any time he might have had to consider these facts was lost to events that later he would say were nearly coincident. As he gained the ground toward the house he heard the unmistakable snapping sound of a tree, not so distant, whose whole top has just caught fire, like one of those crimson oaks that hold onto their leaves until late spring. It could catch from the heat of another tree, maybe a pine, further down the draw and already burning strong. He couldn’t see fire yet, but the smoke had whipped up thick now, and he could sense it was the burning undergrowth that was making the smoke and the tops that were making the noise. Then there was another noise Len couldn’t cipher at first, but then he caught sight of a big truck, grinding around the last turn on the drive, with Chad running alongside it. It was the pumper truck from the Warfield fire company. Darly Ickes hopped off and ran ahead toward Len.

Len ran up to meet him and learned in short order what he had feared–that the whole mountain was on fire. Darly told him that a grader was on the way to stop the fire at the road if it got that far, but they both knew that wouldn’t help the Shade place. The men on the truck had been sent to rescue the house and barn if they could. The pumper had only one set of hoses and not enough water to hold back a big fire, but the house was in the open, and the barn was at the edge of the woodlot. Len sent them up to do what they could for the barn. Darly started back out the road and Len pulled Chad in the direction of the house shouting, We’ve got to water it, boy. We’ve got to water it. He flew in the side door and told Bertie, The fire’s bad. I need the girls. We got to water the sides. Come on! he said meaning only that everyone should be doing something.

Chad was fast but not strong, Len knew, so he set the girls to finding the buckets and he began filling them himself from the well pump in the yard. But the children had no clue as to what he wanted done with the water so then he told Janet to stay out of the way and put Hazel on to pumping and him and Chad to hauling. Len tossed the buckets of water as high against the house as he could to wet down the sides, while Chad ran the empty buckets back to where Hazel was pumping. Bertie was inside, doing some things on her own, gathering important things to put away or take to the truck. Len then started carrying buckets two at a time into the house and up the stairs, where he leaned out the windows, one at a time, wetting the sides of the house from the second story down. Looking up from the girls’ window he could see the smoke swirling now, and he could see the lick of flame in it, moving into the woodlot and approaching the barn. There was an ominous blackening of the sod on the hill between the barn and house as the ground fire raced ahead.

When Len got back outside he saw Bertie had loosed the tap on the kitchen cistern and was playing the water over the low back porch. Then he remembered the fence might catch so he had Hazel pump some more and took it to water the length of the fence that lay in the fire’s path. Bertie was right behind him, pulling at the old dry grass that grew up next to the fence.

Then the wind shifted, coming now from the west, turning the fire away from the barn and up toward the ridge. At the same time the same wind drove the fire up along the dry creek bed and toward the pear orchard close to the house. Len sent Chad up to ask the firemen if they could come down and wet the roof, but without waiting he started hauling water buckets up to the attic, where if he leaned out he could wet down part of the roof on the creek side. On the second trip down he passed Janet coming up and he realized she was scared and no one was telling her what to do. He told her, Go get in the truck, girl. We’re going to be leaving pretty soon. When he got back to Hazel she still looked strong, but the pumping was hard and now Bertie was spelling her since there weren’t enough buckets anyway for everybody to haul water.

He heard the big engine rev up and saw the fire truck start to move, but it was going the wrong way. Chad ran back with the bad news-a man had come down the lane on a bicycle just as Chad had got there and he was yelling, The church has took! The church has took! The big truck had packed up its hose and was now heading back out to the road, to save the church. They were no sooner gone–the running engine no longer a comfort against the crackling of the fire–when the wind shifted around and was again coming from the south. The fire had got hotter in the meantime and the smoke was streaming now and the fire advancing rapidly in the direction of the barn. In another two minutes the woodlot was enswirled in smoke and vertical flames, and then by some acrobatic feat it jumped the lane where the fire truck had been idling and caught the roof of the barn.

As they watched, stupefied, the front of the barn starting showing scorch marks, though no flames seemed to be touching it, but next thing the hay took from inside, and with a great whoosh fire blew out the back and sent sparks and then fire into the brush beyond. Len had paused to watch the spectacle of his poor farm coming to an end, but then he unfroze, glared at the girls on the pump, and turned fiercely to his watering once more.

The wind that caught the barn turned the fire up the creek bed and away from the house. The heat set the dry grass on fire, which burnt down the lane and into the yard. Len tossed a bucket of water on the truck but the fire had quit before it got to the house. The heat lessened and the crackling sound grew distant, as long there wasn’t much of anything left in sight to keep it going. Len put down the bucket and looked at the fields and woods around him, all in blackface now, the trees still standing but no life showing in them. They had saved the house, but they had lost the barn, the sheds, and the sheep pen. They had the new privy, just a little scorched, their 1933 Ford pickup, a frightened cow under the tree in the front yard and maybe a sow and some piglets somewhere. And one old dog, asleep again under the truck.

Then the big fire engine came slowly back along the lane, now poking about for places that might start up again. They had started playing some water on the smoking ruin of the barn when Len came up the hill. Darly wasn’t with them, and the man in charge could only shake his head in sorrow for losing the barn. Len asked, Did you save the church? but the man only shook his head some more. It never took, he said.

Len asked, And DeLong’s? Gone, the man said, burnt to the ground.

All afternoon the sympathetic and the curious ventured in by way of the lane, stopped at the shell of the barn, then came on down to park under the tree. Geez, Len, I’m real sorry. Here’s a pie Belle made. Or, Musta’ been a sight–your livestock get out ok? Len met every one of them, and Bertie came out if she had to. A neighbor reported he had the sow tied up at his place. Len thanked him. The girls both had friends from school in their room all afternoon. Chad stuck by his dad.

When the visiting gave out at the end of the day everybody went inside and had a quiet time. About that time the DeLong family, unbeknownst to the Shades, came walking along the road, now charred all along the left berm with a few spots of burn on the right, and past the Shade place. They started down their own lane, all charred grass now, and down to the start of the hollow. Pap stopped them there, and then he went on alone. In fifteen minutes he was back. He carried an old Mexican machete with a burnt handle, and he spoke quietly with his wife for a minute. She nodded once, and again, and the whole family turned back in the direction they had come from and began the long walk back to town. They never came back–there was nothing to come back to.

It was past supper and the lamps were all lit when Darly Ickes came down the road again. Len had seen him off and on during the afternoon where he was driving the pumper here and there while they looked for hot spots, but now he was cleaned up and driving his ‘39 Chevy sedan. He waited by his car door for Len to come out. It was a bad day for you, Len, he said quietly. Len nodded and said in return, It was a worse day for DeLong.

Darly nodded. They went back to studying the ground. After a bit he said, Little Joe and one of the Smith boys—I don’t know which one—was poking around at the Robinson place and they found something.

Len looked up. Found what started it?

Darly said, Don’t know that, but maybe found who started it.

Len waited. Darly finally said, What they found was Tom Posey, dead as a doornail.

Chapter 2

The Body in the Brush

October, 1998

Bob and the crew were cutting brush from the berms along the township section of Yukon road. Brush is always a problem because as you cut it, it piles up pretty fast. One thing you know during brush time is you want to find somewhere close to push it to. You don’t want to have to mash it down, get it loaded onto a truck, then have to haul it somewhere.

If there’s a drop on one side of the road maybe you can put it there, well off the pavement but still in the right-of-way, but Yukon Road slopes up on both sides. And that’s why the brush is a particular problem there in the first place. In growing season it reaches out into the road, then in the winter when the snow gets on it, it bows right down onto the roadway and you get complaints. Though sometimes it’s an icy snow, and if you hit it just right with the plow down low and the cab up high you’ll break it off clean and—voila—no problem. But you can’t depend on that.

The farm at the bottom of the hill was Ed Large’s place. Ed had a hollow he used for his personal dump and Bob had in mind to ask him about the brush when they got to the point of needing to do something about it, which after almost two days on the job was coming up fast. Then, just as Bob was again picturing asking Ed Large about the brush here comes Ed’s truck in the other lane, and Ed waves but Bob’s got his hands full, and Ed just about goes by but seems to think of something and stops. About half of his torso leans out the window in Bob’s direction and just waits. Bob, who went to school with Ed and therefore knows pretty well exactly what he’s going to say to Bob on any given occasion, kept working on a bundle of floribunda rosebush till it yanked free and slid down to lie at the base of the slope. Then he turned and pretended to notice Ed for the first time.

If you want a warning, Mr. Black, I can give you a warning… and he cocked his head in a mock menacing way. Bob corrected him: Oh, I’m not Mr. Black. Mr. Black’s my daddy and he’s up there, he said, pointing to heaven, I’m just plain old Bob.

Well, I’m just sorry to hear that. If he’s in heaven then you’re never going to see your old man again, because I’m afraid some of us aren’t headed in that direction. He rolled his eyes upward.

Bob put in, Some of us is right! But you know, it’s never too soon for some of us to change our ways. If you know who I mean. Ed rolled his eyes again, but Bob changed the subject. Speaking of soon, soon I have to do something with this mess, his arm sweeping the accumulation of brush along the side of the road.

It is a fine mess, agreed Ed, intent on not being too helpful, although he knew full well what Bob wanted to ask him.

Bob turned all business then: Ed, I was wondering if you’d have a little room in your dump for this stuff. I know it’s a pile, but it’ll rot down pretty quick. Save the township a few dollars. Keep your taxes down. What do you say, Ed?

Keep my taxes down? It’s too late for that, my taxes is as up as up as they ever was, and I don’t hear any politician promising otherwise. You can keep your brush and your taxes! As a township Supervisor Bob was used to catching heat on taxes, though the truth was the township taxes were nothing compared to the school board taxes and the income taxes. As designated Roadmaster he was even more accustomed to hearing about how bad the roads were. True to form, Large had merely begun on taxes, it turned out, and now he turned to the roads:

And what do we get for it? The worst roads in the County, that’s what. And you three working out here at ten and fifteen dollars an hour… , but Bob cut him off with a full-open-mouth roar. Ha-hah! Ten or fifteen dollars an hour! Don’t you believe that one, Mr. Large. And you can check me out on that.

That took the wind out of Large’s sails. He mumbled, I’m not Mr. Large, he’s my dad and I don’t know where he is. Just call me Ed. Plain old Ed.

Well, ‘Plain Old’ Ed, what about that brush?

Large spat a black wad over his folded arms and onto the pavement, snuffled, adjusted his wad, and said, I don’t want it in the dump. You can put it on the Trail, put it near that pile of bricks on the Trail.

Bob knew what