A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [78]
As autumn blossomed, small offerings began to accumulate on the porch of the folly: a blanket, a warm sweatshirt, a pair of gloves, wool socks and—at Bridget’s insistence—a wool stocking cap. At first Lindsay had worried that, by leaving these things, however badly they might be needed, they would push Noah into running away again. But he never gave an indication that he knew who had left them, and they never revealed that they knew his secret. He wore the sweatshirt and the gloves without comment when the mornings turned frosty, but they never saw him in the cap.
Lindsay was faithful to her daily run, which almost always turned into a walk of sheer wonder as the woodland colors grew more and more outrageous. She started taking her camera, snapping photographs to help her remember the multitude of shades and tones and hues nature could produce. But even the high-quality digital capabilities of her camera couldn’t reproduce what she saw with her eyes. She promised herself she would set up an easel and capture these colors before they all faded away, but of course there was never time.
She had developed a circuit that meandered about a mile away from the house, along the trail that led past the folly, across the stream, up a hill beside a rusted barbed wire fence that was overgrown with weeds, through a tall stand of spruce, and around toward the house again. At that hour of the morning mist often still swirled through the trees, and as the sun gradually rose high enough to backlight the elm and maple leaves, they looked as though they were tipped in gold. Walking along with nothing to break the silence but the sound of her own breathing and footsteps crunching in the leaves, Lindsay often felt like she was in church.
She was returning to the house one morning a little before eight o’clock, thinking about how she used to hate getting up for her morning run when she lived in the suburbs, and how it had now become the best part of her day. She had just entered the darkest, quietest part of the woods, where tall, thick pines blocked out the sun and the carpet of needles underneath muffled even her footsteps, when suddenly there was a crashing sound behind her.
She started and whirled around, her heart thudding. She may even have let out a little cry. Then she gave a nervous little laugh at her own foolishness. There was still too much of the city in her, and what she had heard had probably been nothing more than a branch falling.
Except that it came again. A loud rustling, crashing sound in the undergrowth beyond the pines, irregular movement, but coming close. She thought about bears. She thought about mountain men with hunting caps and guns and small, mean eyes. She told herself not to be silly. She called out, scanning the dark woods, “Who’s there?”
Nothing responded. And suddenly the movement again, coming fast and to her right. Something big. Did they have mountain lions here?
“Hello?”
She could see bushes part, and a shower of yellow leaves fell from a scrub tree. She started backing away, quickly. She scanned the ground for a stick or a rock, something to throw. The crashing sound stopped.
It was probably that stupid dog, she thought, but she did not slow down. In fact, she shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and quickened her pace, and when the rustling in the undergrowth started again, stalking her, she ran.
She came around a curve with the rush of her own breath blocking out the sound of her pursuer, and suddenly the creature leapt out of the bushes to block her path. Lindsay screamed and stumbled backward; slipping on pine needles, flailing for balance, she hit the ground hard.
For what seemed like an eternity she lay there flat on her back, gasping like a beached fish, helpless and staring up into the eyes of . . . a deer.
It stood as tall as a small pony, with nobby little antlers sprouting from its head and puffs of steam issuing from its flared nostrils. It was so close she could smell it—a