Page 41 of The Gallagher Place
When it was just the two of them, they pretended the woods around the house were magical; they were girls having trouble letting go of fairy tales.
Though they hadn’t planned to go to the loft that night, they silently flitted toward the old red barn, both of them instinctually drawn to the same spot—their secret place.
The grassy, rolling hillocks of the cow pasture rippled with silver under the full moon. Marlowe tipped her head back and peered wide-eyed at the blanket of stars spread out over the inky sky. They looked so close, as if Marlowe might be able to reach out and pluck one. The unusual brightness of the night had transformed the familiar landscape into something mystical. The barn loomed with more power. The rough surface of the wooden fence, the dark outline of the tree atop the Rise, the gray stone of the milk barn—it all seemed touched with magic.
Earlier that day, they’d seen Dave Gallagher move in steady lines between the fields and the barn. The last Gallagher. The cow herd had thinned out, more than half of it sold off. He could manage only a few wagons of hay bales on his own.
The cows were silent now, most of them sleeping in the pastures, their white spots glowing in the moonlight.
“Remember our brand?” Marlowe asked.
“Yes.” Nora’s eyes lit up. “Should we do it again, to mark this night?”
Marlowe nodded. Adrenaline at their sneaking out in the middle of the night bled easily into creativity. Instead of paint, Nora suggested mud from the pasture.
They scooped up huge wads of claggy earth and carried it into the center of the barn, just below their loft, where they began to lay out the design on a large scale. They had to run back to the pasture several times to get more. It reeked of cow manure, but they didn’t care.
When they were done, they stepped back to observe their handiwork: a circle, five feet in circumference, intersected by an infinity sign and a strangely human-like tree stretching its branches overhead. It appeared almost like a sculpture crafted out of lumps of mud.
A dark stain marred the front of Nora’s sweatshirt. Mud was lodged deep beneath Marlowe’s fingernails. But it was worth it. The brand looked so perfect in the shadowy light of the barn that it sent a shiver down Marlowe’s spine.
They ran fleet-footed and silent back to the house, daring to walk straight through the front door and creeping up the old staircase. The house was sleeping like the dead. They washed off in the upstairs bathroom and donned fresh sets of pajamas before falling into their beds, exhausted but gleeful.
Marlowe looked over at Nora, who was already softly snoring, and thought to herself that she had never been so happy.
THURSDAY
NOVEMBER 29, 2018
TWENTY-TWO
The road toward the Museum of Rhinebeck History twisted through the countryside, passing farmlands, then stately houses, then more fields. Marlowe had to stop at frequent four-way intersections, all of them named after old local families. Herman Corners. Jackson Corners. She took the curving road slowly as she headed west, gripping the steering wheel tighter. Every thought and every memory that popped into her head was now askew and grainy, as if someone had tiptoed through her mind and scratched at her old files with a knife, slicing off details, blurring the dates, knocking conversations off-kilter.
The night before, after trying and failing to sleep, she continued a fevered search on the Internet for information about Pete and Harmon Gallagher. She couldn’t find anything beyond a bare-bones obituary for Pete, and that was no longer enough. Marlowe started searching for local museums and libraries, anywhere that might have records. Buried underneath results advertising Washington Irving’s home and the historic Victorian mansions that lined the Hudson, she found the website for a local farm museum that housed photos and records for historic Hudson Valley families.
The museum was tucked away in an old building on a side street, behind a bookshop and across from a clothing store, its windows dressed with wicker furniture and soft cashmere sweaters. Marlowe was the only visitor. She meandered through the main room, trying to put on a show of examining the antique plow in its glass case and the photos of old farmsteads. After only fifteen minutes, she approached the woman at the desk who had sold her the entry ticket.
“I just moved to the area,” Marlowe said. “I’m so curious about the local farmers—I was wondering if you had any old archives.”
“Yes, we do.” The older woman nodded. “Jeanine can show you—let me get her from the office.”
Jeanine was a gray-haired woman in a heavy-gauge cardigan who peered out at Marlowe from behind her glasses with renewed purpose when Marlowe expressed interest in the museum’s records. She led Marlowe to the archive room. It was narrow and dusty, with tall shelves and a pristine long wooden table that had a set of white microfiber gloves on top. Jeanine spread out a map of the county, labeled with old names and spidery ancient property lines.
Marlowe found Bean River Road and tapped a spot on the map.
“That’s near the Pulvers,” Jeanine said. “They had one of the biggest operations.”
The name was familiar. Marlowe had driven by their massive barns, up on top of the mountain behind the Gray House.
“How long were they in the area?” Marlowe asked. “I’m curious about all the farmhouses built in the late nineteenth century.”
“Well, a lot of those houses are gone or renovated beyond recognition,” Jeanine said. “But so many do remain, and most have a striking history, which is what I justloveabout this area. Some of these farming families go back to the 1700s, back when apple orchards were one of the main industries.”
Marlowe thought of the orchard behind the Gray House. Thebiggest tree had a thick trunk, stout enough to fit several grown men. Its branches bent low to the ground, like a matron with thick hooped skirts. One of the trees had been struck by lightning a few winters ago and had to be taken down. Another one had withered and died. One of them was so old and gnarled and bent that Marlowe thought of it as the grandfather of the orchard.
“I didn’t know that,” Marlowe said, hoping to sell her ignorance. “When did dairy farming start?”
“Nineteenth century,” Jeanine said. “The wet, swampy marshes create ideal grazing pastures. Obviously notinthe swamps, but the water travels overground and underground; that’s what makes it so green up here.”
