Tracks on the Pond Ice Lead but One Way
by Bernie Paquette
My snowshoes kept me aloft, while I walked through knee-high dry powdery snow on my way to the pond in Jericho, Vermont. I felt like I was walking through a forest of snow cones, the cones being sumac berries topped with snow. Temperatures were fluttering in the twenty-degree range, the sun was bright enough that sunglasses might be a consideration, except with them, the milky white snow would have turned grey or pale green. With the occasional lite gust of wind, snow from atop the fir trees would revert back to snowflakes as the wind knocked parcels of fluffy powder off the branches, and dispersed the community of crystals each to their own way adrift across and over the edges of the pond.
Reaching the crest of the slope leading to the pond, I gazed out at the expanse. Directly in front of me at the bottom of the slope, what looked like a three or four-foot-wide set of converged snow-packed depressions emanating from the shoreline. They seem to have come from nowhere. Perhaps a prior strong wind had buried the terrestrial depressions, yet somehow not buried those upon the shoreline.
It was serenely quiet and winter postcard picturesque from where I stood. The frozen pond never snapped and moaned as the late winter frozen lake is prone to do on cold and sunny days. Usually, any fissures quickly refroze and sealed themselves leaving no trace of a prior collapsable section.
The pond seemed to be content and cozy with snow covering its dark ice eyes holding back all hints or suggestions of its mood or fancy. Sun shone bright trying to expose the pond's secrets, while the opposite (western) shoreline of tall fir trees, snags, and some underbrush, remained clouded in shadow highlighting the over-exposed pond.
Few animal tracks transversed the open expanse that offers no safe area, no place to hide. I wondered how a deer, bear, or other creature knows if it is safe to cross. How do they make judgment of such unassured footing? Are fawns taught by their Bambi mothers that no ice is safe ice? Do bears plunge their paws through the ice to go ice fishing? Do weasels and mink and bored beaver slide down the slope onto the ice in competition to see who can sled out the farthest across the snow-covered ice? How do otter make those fifty-cent piece-sized air holes in the ice, and how do they remember where the holes are located as they swim about? Are the bubbles that periodically (if you sit long enough and keep watching you will see them) arise up inside these holes, are they from otter burping or farting? This and other things I wondered as I stared out at the quiet vacant pond that held so many secrets that sometimes they pushed up on the ice and caused it to crack, split open, and to release some tale to hideous to hold any longer.
The depressions on the shoreline caught my attention once again. They fanned out quickly becoming individual snowshoe prints making short strides, each right print only reaching out about halfway from each left print. The set on the left took a wide arch to the left, then headed towards the middle of the frozen pond. While two sets of prints stayed close together on the right, one heading in a beeline fashion while the other angling out to the left a bit, then eventually joining the other and seemingly becoming one set of tracks thereafter. In the middle, also stemming from the one wide starting depression on the shoreline, were two more sets of tracks that both headed left for a few steps then simultaneously angled right then followed a targeted approach to the opposite shoreline, such that by the mid pond all five sets of tracks were headed to the opposite shoreline right of the starting point.
The first thing that struck me as odd was that each set of tracks had pushed down the snow leaving the black ice as a testament of their lodging; however, this was so only for the first six steps (of each of the five sets). Thereafter the depressions either did not sink in as deep, or new snow had partially covered them, as ice could not be seen in any of the snowshoe prints beyond the first six steps leading out. There was no sign of the snowshoers having set down a heavy load to lighten their steps. By the time the prints reached almost to the other shoreline, they were of the slightest imprints of their former selves, merely mirror images with no measurable depth, a white shadow. They were like the footprints of a ghost who ate just one too many marshmallows, barely exposing his normally transparent footprints.
Also, there was, and this is what struck me next, a two-inch-wide dragging mark, as though left by a critter’s tail, aside the snowshoe tracks but not down to the ice level. These began near the shoreline in the middle of the two middle sets of prints. The dragging tail also seemed to leave less of a depression as it moved out across the snow-covered pond.
The next thing that struck me was that the tracks went across the pond but one way. They did not return nor did they appear to leave the pond on the other side. Five pairs of snowshoe tracks starting at the edge of a frozen pond, stretching across the pond, first firmly, then fading, going to nowhere. Tracks starting out of thin air; tracks in the snow leading to nowhere. This was all starting to sound mysterious, and a bit chilling even under the bright light of day.
Of course, I thought, there must be a logical explanation. Perhaps two people walked across the iced-over pond with snowshoes, then returned by walking backward, I calculated. Except, I realized that leaves one set of tracks that still lead to nowhere that never returned.
The dark ice eyes seemed to twinkle in the sunlight, a bubble or two erupted from a small hole in the ice not far from where I stood. A gust of wind created a snow dust-bowl close to the shoreline where the tracks ended. I conjured up a most fanciful ghost or white fleeced critter that stood five feet high and was as wide as a two-hundred-year-old oak. At the same time, the ice let out a bellowing creek and a snap, the likes of which I had never experienced even on frozen Lake Champlain. Certainly, I had never heard the pond ice shift, crack, or make any noise whatsoever, before now.
I took a few steps back, nearly tripping, as the slope ascended rather sharply behind where I stood. I looked about, first across the pond, then all around, including behind me, as if I might find some prankster who somehow set this all in place to give me one good fright. All remained quiet now - no wind, no sounds, nobody about but me. The snow bowl settled back upon its cold bed. The black eyes of the ice no longer twinkled, they only sat motionless absorbing my last remaining sense that there must be some explanation to all this. An explanation that did not have a gory ending. There must be, I kept telling myself unconvincingly.
This was beginning to feel and look like I might have come to the pond after the last chapter of a horrible event, of which only scant evidence remained, and of which was now engulfed in the dark chambers of the normally docile-looking pond. Perhaps this event had occurred recently. Perhaps the rare quaking, snap, and crack of the pond ice was indeed an involuntary reflexive action to release some of the overload of horror that had befallen into its midst, into the dark ice and snow-covered chambers, settling into the muck and mud and debris at the bottom of the pond, to be forever encased in mystery.
Later, once the ice had melted, the Vermont State Police Divers searched the pond for two days, seeking any signs of bodies. The pond did not give up any more secrets. The only seemingly strange observation noted on the State Police report was that of “five sets of snowshoe prints in the muck and mud starting at the western shore of the pond” and headed to where I stood that fateful day. “The tracks started out deeply embedded in the mud but faded as they moved on to nowhere. Case unresolved but closed. Recommend signs be posted around the pond stating no ice is safe ice. Furthermore, we recommend the pond be renamed ‘One-Way Pond’. V.S.P."
Emailed comments:
Dear Bernie!
I absolutely loved your story! I love that you noticed these little things and shared them, and you’re a fantastic writer. Really! I was hung on every word. And who knew we had a resident wendigo [*]? I hope it’s friendly...
I also wanted to thank you for something random. I love birds and wanted to fill my feeder, but wasn’t sure who, if anyone, would drop by for a snack. I could *hear* them, but I always research before I invest, even in birdseed. So I searched “Vermont winter birds” and your blog was the top result! Not only that, you’d posted it the previous day — serendipity! I recognized your name from FPF so it gave me a chuckle and reminded me of what a lovely little community we have.
Anyway, glad I had a chance to say hello and thank you for sharing your love of the beauty of Vermont. Always brightens my day :)
Kindly,
Allison
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