Crackpot Palace Read Online Free PDF Page B

we trudged along, now each holding a sleeping kid, passing beneath tall pines on a carpet of needles, Lynn said, “I bet Ginny tried to corroborate Crackpop’s story about the band of Indians hiding in the Barrens with that Lenape storyteller.”
    â€œSo?” I said.
    â€œSay the storyteller was in on it, and he told her he’d never heard of it in order to keep people from searching for his ancestors.”
    â€œDon’t you think Crackpop’s just nuts?” I said.
    â€œOf course,” she said.
    I t was early November and Atsion Road was littered with yellow leaves the same color as Crackpop’s house. I drove to the end of the road, looked both ways, crossed over Route 206, and entered a dirt driveway with a steep incline. The car dipped down and then ascended a little hill. On the other side of that hill I could see a grass parking area and beyond that the steeple of a church from behind the trees. There were two other cars there but no one in sight. I parked, got out, and put my jacket on. It was cool and there was a strong breeze.
    I was only twenty yards from the trailhead. I’d done some research of my own and knew that if I’d had the time and fortitude that trail would’ve taken me through the heart of the Pine Barrens and ended fifty miles later, at Batsto, another early iron settlement where they’d made shot for the Revolution. I started into the woods. About a hundred yards later, off to my left, there was a large clearing, and sitting in the middle of it was a white church. I’d read up on it. The Samuel Richards Church, a Quaker establishment built in 1828. Richards had owned the foundry at Atsion Village. His mansion still stood over by the lake.
    There was a graveyard next to the building, the stones planted in concentric circles. At the far end of it was the most enormous oak I’d ever seen. The tree was ancient, and the way it stood there, barren of leaves against the blue sky, made me feel as if it could be thinking. I walked into the graveyard and looked at the markers. They were thin, with an arch at the top, and were made of some white stone that could have been marble or limestone. I read some of the names and dates that were still legible, the oldest being 1809. Some disaster took four of the Andrews family in one day. As I walked back to the trail, I looked quickly over my shoulder at the oak.
    I walked a mile or more that first time in the Barrens and saw no one. Finally, at a place where a stream ran alongside the trail, I stopped, surrounded by endless pine and oak. Red and yellow leaves covered the underbrush. It was so quiet that when the wind blew, I could hear the pines creaking as they swayed. Off at a distance, a crow cawed. Right then I felt something curl in my chest, and I turned around and started back. I saw deer watching me from deeper in among the trees.
    Back in my car, I went up the dirt hill and crossed Route 206. On my way up Atsion toward home, I spotted a large, hand-painted sign on the side of the road. In bright green on an orange background it read ART SHOW TODAY! ALL WELCOME! Then I saw it was at Crackpop’s house, and I was pulling over. There were a number of cars parked along Atsion and more pulled up into the lot next to the house. When I got out of my car, I saw people in the backyard and smelled a barbecue.
    I passed beneath the writhing tree giants in front and went around back. There were more of the crazy sculptures in the big backyard and from their twisted hands hung paintings and mobiles made from animal bones. Some people sat under them smoking pot, and pretty much everybody there had an open beer. People just nodded to me and smiled. Kids and teenagers and old people, black, white, and a woman made up like an Arab sheikh in white robes. When I passed the grill a young guy with a goatee and tattoos all over his arms, holding a spatula, offered me a hot dog. I accepted and moved on, strolling around