Ghost Medicine Read Free Page A

crazy.

    We rode around the entire shore of the pond. It had a rock bottom, and the water was clear and cold. In the afternoon sun, dropping at an angle, I could see fish sitting still, then jerking into deeper water when Reno’s hooves clapped down.
    At the rounded north end of the pond, there was a crooked old log cabin set back under the dark and low pines, half-dug into a mounding of earth and rock shards so that it was hardly noticeable. It had a flat log roof, which had accumulated so much dirt and debris over the years that small trees and brush and wild purple irises grew on it. A black metal stovepipe jutted up out of the right side. It had a square doorway with no door, and one four-paned window with clouded, cracked glass.
    I knew that lumbermen had built cabins a hundred years ago or so on the lower slopes, when the redwood forests were being cleared. Occasionally, signs of these old cabins would make themselves obvious along with the rusted cables and machinery that had been used before the lumber companies had to stop the clearing. This had to have been the cabin of a hunter, or maybe a hermit, but it looked sound enough. And empty, too.
    â€œDo me a favor. Don’t run off, okay?” I said to Reno as I got down from the saddle.
    The cabin was maybe ten feet deep, and the window allowed for enough light that I could see everything in it. The roof sagged in some spots, but even with my hat on I could stand up straight. There was an old four-leg woodstove at the end away from the window. Like the cabin itself, it was missing its door, but the pipe looked functional. Near the stove was a bed, partially carved from the log wall and made complete with dried redwood planking. The floor was dirt, but had accumulated an eclectic macadam of bottle tops, flattened cans, rocks, broken glass, and shell casings from guns of all sizes.
    A wood Coke crate was nailed to the wall, its empty square bottle cubbies having at one time served to help organize the person who put it there. A table by the window was covered with dust and pine needles, empty, unlabeled jars, one plate, two forks, and two yellow and rusted paperback books:
The Idiot
, and
Jude the Obscure
. Thumbing through them, I decided that I’d read the Hardy book if I stayed on long enough or got bored, because the first pages of
The Idiot
had been torn out, probably to get the stove started.
    I went out and took the saddle and pack down from Reno. At this side of the cabin, an old galvanized tub was half-dug into the hillside, where a slow trickle of spring water kept it constantly overflowing. Reno drank from it.
    I climbed up the hill to the back of the cabin’s roof and cautiously walked out onto it. The stovepipe had a crude cap made from a porous and corroded coffee can. I pulled it up and looked down the pipe to see if it was clear. A bird’s nest came up with the coffee can as I lifted it. It had long since been abandoned, and there was still half a small blue paper-thin eggshell in it, a rusted drop of dried blood on its inner surface.
    I could see light at the bottom of the pipe, so I knew I could probably get a fire going without worrying about not waking up in the morning.
    I spread my sleeping bag out on the plank bed. I cleared off the table and put the books on top of the Coke crate on the wall. I arranged my pack and food bag on the table and went outside to gather dead wood for the stove. The moon was rising behind the trees across the pond. Reno rested patiently in the temporary corral I roped on the side of the cabin. I was suddenly very hungry and very sleepy.
    I got a fire going in the belly of the stove, without having to resort to book pages as kindling. I opened a can of pork and beans and put it on the surface of the stove. When my food was warmed, I sat up on the bed and ate. Looking out the doorway of the cabin, I could see the white moon, frozen like a dripping comet in the still surface of the pond. Even now,