“Mud Season” by Sarah Stewart Taylor: Featured eShort Excerpt

When the Reverend Grayson Call finally arrived at the pulpit at a quarter past the hour, he was not dressed in his customary robe. Instead, he was in civilian clothes and his trouser legs up to his knees were caked in thick dark mud that had dried in spots and formed small peaks and whorls, like chocolate meringue. The minister had removed his boots—surely even more blanketed in muck—and his bright cherry-red socks made for a cheery and incongruous note, like a cardinal at a birdfeeder.

Alice Farnham Bellows, ensconced in her customary perch in the third pew, could see immediately what had happened. It was early April and they were already a week into Vermont’s fifth official season, when melting snowpack ran down from the mountains and emerged from the earth and made most of the unpaved roads in town impassable. Alice herself had had the experience of driving along a back road this time of year, dodging potholes and muddy sections, and then finding that the tires of her car had gotten irrevocably and completely stuck in the thick mud. When that happened, there was nothing for it but to get out of your car and try to push it along or to abandon it and walk to the nearest house. Something like that must have happened to the Reverend Call.

Indeed, once the Reverend arrived at the pulpit and spread out his arms to show the extent of his muddiness to general laughter in the congregation, he explained that it was exactly as Alice had thought, with a twist. He had driven out on Goodrich Hill Road to visit a sick parishioner before church, and on the way there, he had come upon a car stuck in the mud. It was completely mired, he said, and was turned sideways on the narrow road so that there was no chance of passing it without entering the deep trenches on the shoulders. The reverend could not drive past it without risking his own car. He explained how he’d gotten out and walked up to the other car to offer aid but found that it was empty, the driver nowhere to be found. He had tried to push it but found himself unable, and so, his pants now caked with mud, he had abandoned the idea of the parishioner visit and turned around to take the other way to town, making him late for his sermon.

“It reminded me of something that we all could use some reminding of once in a while,” he said, in his gentle, booming voice. “That sometimes, when you encounter an obstacle, you must turn around and find another way. Who amongst us has not found this to be true with a relationship or with a situation in our lives?”

The story left the congregation with a nice, light feeling and the sermon, about the necessity of accepting hard things, peppered with some improvised additions about the mud, was exactly right. Alice decided that the morning had been well spent and, after the coffee hour, she walked out into the April day with the remains of her walnut shortbread cookies on a china plate. The sun was up and shining enthusiastically and as she walked around the town green on her way home, Alice spontaneously tossed the cookies to a circle of sparrows that had gathered beneath the gazebo. Watching them chatter as they pecked at the treat left her peaceful and content.

But, over the next few hours, as she puttered around her house at the other end of the green and returned a few letters, she found that she could not stop thinking about the car that had delayed the minister. Who had abandoned it? Had that person returned for it? Why hadn’t they waited around to have it towed? Where had they gone? Something about the story had her wondering. So, after a cup of midafternoon tea, she wandered down to Collers’ Store on Bethany Green to see if anyone knew anything about the business.

Alice, who had grown up in Bethany, Vermont, and returned to live here full time ten years ago after the death of her husband, knew that any bit of news making its way around town would pass through Collers’ Store before winging its way out to the general public and finally to rest between the pages of the weekly Bethany Register. Intercepting it at the store was the most efficient way to get up to speed.

Collers’ was busy, as it always was on Sunday afternoons; Alice waited with her newspapers and bag of flour and looked around the store to see who she might be able to ask. She saw Jean Fielder, the wife of the editor of the Bethany Register, and thought about asking her, but Fred Fielder would not know anything about this car yet. There had barely been time for the police to be alerted, and in the meantime, perhaps the owner had returned. It was not a newsworthy event really, when you got right down to it, and it was quite a common occurrence during mud season. No, Alice needed to talk to someone—first-or second-hand—who had seen this abandoned car.

“Good afternoon, Lizzie,” Alice greeted Lizzie Coller once she’d reached the counter. Alice sighed happily as she studied the familiar chaos, plain, efficient Lizzie moving quickly amongst it. Collers’ Store had barely changed in the fifty-five years Alice had spent on earth and she hoped it never would. The jars of candy gleamed in the case, the stacks of newspapers had been reduced by the post-church rush, and posters announcing various town happenings and events were pinned to the wall behind Lizzie’s head. On the high counter were stacks and piles of various things that people might want to buy but didn’t merit a permanent home on the shelves in any of the three labyrinthine rooms that made up the store. Today, there were jugs of maple syrup, some hand-knitted hats and mittens, and a few carved wooden trains made by a man who lived a few towns over and had lost one of his legs in Korea. A radio, somewhere in the back of the store, played that “Sugar pie, honey bunch” song that you heard everywhere these days.

Lizzie rang up Alice’s purchases and took her money. Alice was about to ask her if she’d heard anything about the car when a familiar profile outside the store’s plate-glass window caught Alice’s attention. She said a hurried goodbye to Lizzie and took her bag.

Pinky Goodrich had passed the store and was walking along in the direction of the green. Pinky—Trooper Walter Goodrich of the Vermont State Police—had grown up in town and joined the state police out of high school, and Alice, along with the rest of the town, had felt proud and relieved when he was posted to the Bethany barracks. It was good to have someone who knew Bethany on hand.

She caught up to him on the green and came right out with what she wanted, knowing he would not be surprised. “Pinky,” she called. When he turned around, she said, “What do you know about this car that was abandoned on Goodrich Hill Road?”

“Mrs. Bellows,” Pinky said in his kind way, blushing a deep shade of crimson. It was not that he was embarrassed, Alice knew, but rather that any emotion—fear, embarrassment, pleasure—caused Pinky to blush. It was his condition and the source of his nickname. Everyone in town was used to it by now. “How did you hear about that?”

“The Reverend Call showed up to church covered in mud,” she said. “He’d had to go back when he came upon the car.”

“Ah. Well, we don’t know much about it, is the truth. I believe Chester Foster has towed it to his shop now, so the road is clear again. Were you wanting to go up that way?” Pinky seemed confused by her interest.

“No, I wasn’t. I was just curious. It seems odd, doesn’t it? That someone would get stuck there and just … walk away.”

“Well,” Pinky said thoughtfully. “People do strange things. Maybe he had an appointment he was late for and he got out and ran. Perhaps he’ll show up at Chester’s later looking for his car. Though…”

“Though what?” Alice was alert to the sounds of Pinky’s brain turning.

“Well, it’s got Pennsylvania plates, see, so you would think this person might have, well, let someone know, I guess? But still, it’s just … well, a damned thing.” He blushed again. “Excuse my language, but … Chief Longwell had his boys search the woods around Goodrich Hill Road, just to make sure this man hadn’t started walking and then had a heart attack or something. Doesn’t seem like it, though, and there’s good visibility this time of year.” Alice knew he was right. In the summer or early fall, it was hard to see much in the thick woods off Goodrich Hill, but it was April and the trees had not budded yet; last year’s leaves were rotting beneath what was left of the snow.

“Is the chief concerned, Pinky?” Alice asked.

Pinky had to think about that for a minute. “No, Mrs. Bellows. I’d say annoyed is more like it. That car held up an awful lot of people trying to get to church yesterday.” He reached up to scratch his nose and frowned.

“But what was he doing, Pinky?” Alice asked. “That’s what I don’t understand. If you had driven up here from Pennsylvania and your car was stuck, wouldn’t you need to get it out? How would you get home otherwise? And where did this person go? It almost makes you think that…”

“Makes you think what, Mrs. Bellows?” Pinky had caught her meaning and started to look concerned.

Alice smiled and said, “Well, Pinky. It just makes me think that there’s something wrong about it, if you know what I mean. I hope Chief Longwell will get in touch with the Department of Motor Vehicles in Pennsylvania soon and get some answers on this. I suspect we’ll hear something about this car soon enough.” Alice knew enough not to ask Pinky to tell her what the chief found. She knew he wouldn’t be able to do that, but Alice wasn’t at all worried. She had lots of ways of finding out information that did not involve either Chief Longwell or Pinky Goodrich.

The town did not hear anything from the owner of the car that night and by Monday morning, Alice found that she could not stop thinking about it. It was an unseasonably warm day, nearly 60 degrees, and out in her garden, she found that the small, shiny tips of some of the bulbs were poking through the soppy layer of topsoil. Muscari would be here before she knew it, and tulips, and daffodils too. Alice sighed. There was nothing more life affirming than the reappearance of her beautiful flowers every spring. She hoped that when her time came, she would die in the late summer, so she would get to see all of her flowers. But then again, it would be hard to miss the autumn. Vermont autumns were so lovely, the hills and valleys blazing with color, the air so deliciously crisp and smoky. Perhaps November would be the time to die. But then one would miss Christmas and the magic of frozen ponds and softly falling snowflakes and lights shining in the windows on the green. And then you were right back to waiting for spring again. It would be a tragedy to die before the spring flowers had shown their familiar faces, old friends returned to town.

Alice cleared away some limbs that had fallen into the garden during the winter and then went inside to make some phone calls. Her housekeeper, Mildred, was ironing and listening to the radio and she shut it off when Alice came in and went to put the tea kettle on. It had taken Mildred some time to get used to Alice’s habit of drinking tea during the day. Mildred, a fourth-generation Vermonter, believed in one cup of weak coffee with breakfast, but found the constant tea drinking—something Alice had learned while living abroad during her marriage—excessive and strange. She made tea for Alice, though, and Alice had noticed that once in a while she even made a cup for herself now.

The tea drank and the calls made, Alice drove through town and out to Foster’s Auto Body. Chester had been fixing cars in Bethany since Alice was a young woman and he had kept her own vehicles running smoothly for many years. Her late husband, Ernie, had liked European cars and Chester had grudgingly fixed the German imports that Ernie managed to bring across the Atlantic, when Ernie could find the parts, that was. Since Ernie’s death ten years ago, Alice had driven Fords—she loved her blue Ford Falcon—and Chester approved heartily. Alice found him underneath a truck, the radio playing loudly in a corner of the garage. “Chester,” she shouted, because she knew it was the only way he would hear her. It took a couple of tries but finally he rolled out from underneath the truck on his dolly and sat up.

“Oh, Chester, I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said. “But the car is making a terribly strange sound and I need to drive to Boston next week and, well, I thought I’d better just have you take a look.”

Chester stood up and asked a few probing questions about the nature of the sound, the answers to which Alice had to improvise since there was in fact no strange sound. The Falcon had been running like a top.

“Well, I’d better get it up on the lift and have a look,” he said. “Shouldn’t take long.”

“Oh, I’ll wait, Chester, thank you.” She pretended to just that moment notice the mud-spattered Chevrolet with Pennsylvania license plates on the other side of the yard. “That must be the famous car, she said casually. “We heard all about it at church yesterday.”

Chester looked confused and then followed her gaze. “Oh, yes, I guess so. We brought it in yesterday.”

Alice nodded. “Chester, do you know if the chief has heard from the owner?”

“Not as such,” Chester said. “The chief was going to call down to Pennsylvania and trace the plates. It’s a funny thing. There’s nothing in the glove compartment, no registration, no nothing. Suitcase in the trunk, but Chief said that didn’t help either. No identification inside. Whoever the man was, he took the keys with him. Anyways, I’ll take a look at your car. You can wait inside if you want.”

“Alice gestured toward the sky. “Oh, I’ll have a bit of a walk around, Chester,” she said. “The sun is lovely today, isn’t it?”

Chester grunted something that Alice figured was a comment about how the sun was responsible for the mud and, at the moment, the mud was making his life difficult.

Alice thanked him again and walked back out into the yard. She waited until Chester had pulled her car into the garage bay and then she sidled over to the Chevrolet. It was still half covered in mud, the body a bronzy brown above the duller brown of the mud, and she could see spatter where the unfortunate driver had spun his wheels trying to get out of it. “The car was surely locked and she didn’t want to touch it anyway, so she walked around it looking through the windows. There was nothing sitting on the seats or dashboard that might give her a clue as to the owner’s identity. That seemed odd to her. She kept her own car clean, but there was always something on the seat, a box or an extra sweater or jacket that she had brought along and then forgotten to bring inside. And of course she had all of her documents in the glove compartment. Why would someone be driving without any identifying documents at all? This was only one of the mysteries of this car, of course, Alice thought. The bigger one was why someone from Pennsylvania had been on such a remote back road in Vermont in the first place. What had this person been doing there? Alice tried to picture the houses along the road. Could the driver had been going to visit someone? But if that was the case, why had they not returned to get the car? Were they some sort of burglar? She would surely have heard if a crime had been committed on the road. Bethany was a small town when it came right down to it.

Chester had said something about a suitcase in the trunk. Alice checked that he was still occupied with her car and went around to the back of the Chevrolet. The latch on the trunk was the same as the one on Alice’s Ford. If it was not locked, it did not need a key; you only had to squeeze it to open the trunk. She looked around again to make sure that no one was watching and then used a clean handkerchief from her coat pocket to push the latch. It popped open and she caught the trunk top with the handkerchief-covered finger so it would not open all the way and alert Chester. Quickly, she bent to look inside.

There were in fact two suitcases in the trunk. One was a small bag made of battered but good-quality brown leather. There did not seem to be a tag on it. The other bag was rectangular, thin tartan fabric over cardboard with a cheap metal handle. It looked new. Like its mate, this bag did not have an obvious tag. Alice frowned.

Checking to make sure there was nothing else in the trunk, she dropped the lid again and walked back toward the garage. A few minutes later, Chester came out and said, “I can’t find anything obvious, Mrs. Bellows. She seems to be running well. Do you want me to keep her, though, and really take a look?”

“Oh no, Chester. Your clean bill of health is good enough for me. If the sound continues, I’ll bring her back to you.”

Chester agreed and Alice thanked him. As she drove home, she decided it was a good thing Chester did not have a more suspicious nature.

Copyright © 2024 by Sarah Stewart Taylor. All rights reserved.

About “Mud Season” by Sarah Stewart Taylor:

It’s mud season in Bethany, Vermont. As spring nears, the thawing ground and melting snow-pack have created muddy, impassable roads. It’s not unusual to see a driver pushing their car or going for help. But a car with Pennsylvania plates has been completely abandoned, still stuck in the mud.

Alice Bellows, an inquisitive widow who seems to know everything going on in town, can’t help but wonder what would lead someone to abandon their car like that. All that’s left in the car are two suitcases sitting in the trunk, no registration or keys. The police aren’t too concerned about the abandoned car, but Alice thinks there’s more to the story. Not sure what she’ll find or who may get hurt, she takes it upon herself to find the car’s owner and what they’re hiding in her small town.