Book Six in the LeGarde Mystery series, actually a sequel to Tremolo: cry of the loon
When young Gus LeGarde befriends a cranky old hermit in the woods who speaks to an Oneida Indian spirit named Penaki, he wonders if the man is nuts. But when Penni rattles tin cups, draws on dusty mirrors, and flips book pages, pestering them to find evidence to avenge her past and free her from earthly bondage, things change.
What Gus doesn’t understand is why his mother hates Tully. His relentless digging reveals a hint of scandal about Tully and Gus’s maternal grandfather, Marlowe Wright. Can his natural compassion help him accept the not-so-normal facts about Tully and Marlowe?
On horseback, Gus and his friends ride through woods overlooking Conesus Lake, following Penni’s trail to an abandoned house reportedly infected with the deadly Genesee Valley Fever from the 1700s. Unafraid, they enter and make an astounding find that could rewrite history.
Gus summons courage beyond his years in this poignant and powerful telling of the sultry summer of 1965.
Excerpt
Chapter One
We crept toward the old shack on our bellies, crab-crawling over moss and oak leaves. Elsbeth breathed softly to my left, just out of sight. Siegfried took the lead, several feet ahead of me. Behind us, the horses stood tethered to maple saplings; they munched steadily on the sweet leaves with a rhythmic crunching sound, their tails swishing against the sting of deerflies.
"Gus?" Elsbeth's whisper glanced off the air. "Do you think anyone lives here?"
I pressed a finger to my lips. "Shh. I think I heard something." I was glad I'd left Shadow at home. That little beagle would've betrayed us, running all over the woods baying at every new scent he found.
Siegfried raised a hand, signaling us to stop. He'd heard it, too. It was a keening sound, a high-pitched wail that was speech but not speech, closer to song, but with no melody I recognized.
Ice crawled down my spine and tingled in my toes. My heart pounded against the soft earth beneath me. I chanced a look at Elsbeth, whose eyes had gone wide with what some people might think was fear. But I knew better. Excitement lurked behind those big brown eyes. She didn't scare easily now that she was eleven.
Wood smoke escaped the chimney in a lazy tendril, spreading into gray softness that filled the air with the aroma of campfires on cold winter mornings. Whoever lived inside this remote, ramshackle cabin must have just started a cooking fire, for the scent of wood smoke was soon followed by the clanging of a cast iron pan and the distinctive scent of bacon.
Siegfried glanced back at us, motioning toward a tumbled-down stone wall. He hopped to his feet and scrambled toward the cabin, chest tucked tightly to his knees. Although I was a full year older than the twins, I often let Siegfried lead. He was the one with the compass and the navigational skills, and took us on excursions into the forests behind the Ambuscade.
While we lay on our bellies watching the cabin, I couldn't help but remember snatches of Mrs. Wilson's history lessons last year. Even though we'd often played around the Ambuscade Monument, which was back in the field we'd just crossed, I really hadn't appreciated the importance of the area until she started telling us the story.
She said Washington sent John Sullivan and his men to fight for the settlers in 1779. They'd attacked the Indians, and had burned villages, cut down apple orchards, and destroyed families. It had been a real slaughter.
But it was hard to know who to root for, because some of Sullivan's men had been later ambushed by British troops and some Iroquois Indians. Fifteen men were massacred very close to where we lay. Two of the officers, Boyd and Parker, were captured and tortured in Little Beard's village in a town we now know as Cuylerville.
A plaque stands there today, marking the spot where they were tortured. Now, in 1965–a hundred and eighty-six years later–I stared at it in fascination whenever my father drove us past it on the way to Letchworth State Park.
Siegfried poked my side and pointed to the house, where a shadow crossed the window. I nodded and watched.
Elsbeth lay snug against me behind the stone wall. She nudged me in the ribs and whispered so close to my ear it tickled. "Someone's in there!"
A one-sided conversation had started up inside the cabin. I strained to hear, trying to calm the heartbeat in my ears that pounded over the words I couldn't make out.
I listened to the deep male voice. Gruff and playful, he seemed to be discussing plans for the day. But no one answered him.
I scanned the area. Siegfried noticed and followed my gaze. No telephone poles or wires. No electricity. Unless he had one of those walkie-talkies like they used in the war, he must be talking to a mute person or to a very soft-spoken person.
I noticed several cracked windows and wondered why the man inside hadn't fixed them. The front door looked solid, made from rough planks, but the roof dipped and waved near the chimney. I imagined when it rained it probably dripped from the ceiling into buckets. Globs of tar and different colored shingles plastered the roof in various spots. A beat-up Ford pickup was parked under the trees in the back.
Siegfried crawled around the edge of the wall. We followed him, creeping closer to the side of the shack until we were right under the window with two cracked panes.
Now we could hear better. The man's rumbling voice gave me chills.
"Why don't you want me to go?"
Silence.
"Okay. So come with me. What's the big deal?"
More silence.
The man groaned. "Nobody will see you. You can wait outside."
The twins and I exchanged puzzled looks and moved closer to the window.
The deep voice spoke again. "What? Who's outside?"
Siegfried's eyes grew round as fireballs. I tensed. Elsbeth grabbed my arm and squeezed. Heavy footfalls thundered across the floor and the window above us flew open. The blast of his voice came milliseconds before his head poked out.
"What in tarnation are you kids doing?"
Frozen in place, we stared at the man, whose grizzled face twisted in fury. A tangled white beard hung six inches beneath his chin, resting on a red-and-white checkered flannel shirt. Black suspenders looped over his shoulders, and his gnarled hands batted the air in front of his face. He yelled louder this time. Three crows cawed and abandoned their perch in the giant cottonwood overhead.
"Well, speak up! What the hell's going on here?"
Elsbeth spoke first, shocked into her native language. "Es tut mir leid."
When the man squinted his eyes in confusion, she recovered.
"Um. Sorry, sir. We didn't think anyone lived here."
We scuttled backwards on our hands and feet, our backsides scraping the earth like bouncing bulldozers. Siegfried jumped up and pulled his sister to her feet.
I stumbled back against the wall, ramming my spine against the stones. I winced, scrambled to my feet and stared at the ground. "We're sorry, Mister. We were looking for a fort."
The sound of a rifle cocking made me look up again. A long barrel poked out the window, aimed at my chest.
"If you kids aren't gone by the time I count to five, you're dead meat. Now scat!"
I don't know if he actually counted or not. The blood rushed in my ears and drowned out all sounds. We raced to our horses, swung onto their backs, and galloped down the woodland trail to safety.
Professional Reviews
A Master Storyteller!
Don't Let the Wind Catch You is a wonderful, rich heart-warming story of depth and substance, beautifully told. If you liked 'The Waltons' and 'Little House' on the Prairie, you will love this book. And though I make the comparisons, the story is told in the distinctive voice of Gus/Aaron Lazar. Like the voice of a favorite singer you know from the first note. The author never misses a beat, and is totally in control of his material.
The story takes place in the 1960s. It is a strong mystery, with family secrets,but more than that. It is a coming of age story, complete with all the angst and beauty inherent in growing up. It's a romance and a ghost story.
You come to know Gus not only from the caring, respectful way he treats not only other people, but also his dog and his horse. You just know he will grow up to be a very special man. Buy it! And settle back for a wonderful read that will stay with you long after you read the final paragraph.
A great read!
Don't Let the Wind Catch You is a wonderful story of three pre-teenage children growing up in a small upstate New York town in the summer of 1965. The book captures both the innocence of the times, as well as that of the children wonderfully. The story is descriptive and easy flowing. The chapters are short and too the point, making this a wonderful read for pre-teen and teen aged children. There is a bit of everything in this book, drama, mystery, history, maybe even a bit of the supernatural.
I felt Mr. Lazar did a particularly good job dealing with the coming of age aspect of Gus' feelings for his friend Elsbeth. He describes the awkwardness and self conflict Gus is dealing with in a very life like manner.
There were times when this book reminded me of the movie "Stand by me." Other times the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" (even before it was mentioned in the book).
In all, this book was extremely well written with a great story. It is highly recommended.
The warmest mystery you'll ever read!
With every book in the LeGarde series, the reader gets to know Gus better, and the more we know of him, the more likeable he becomes. Rarely has an author given us such insight into a single character through a book series. We've met Gus as an adult in Upstaged, a grieving widower in Double Forte', as a young boy in Tremolo: Cry of the Loon and now, in Don't Let the Wind Catch You, as a 12 year old just at the point of becoming a teenager. It's 1965 and Gus is starting to feel a growing attraction to his friend Elsbeth, who we know will later become his wife. Elsbeth and her brother Siegfried are his best friends and together they have lots of adventures. This summer they come across an old cabin in the woods and are surprised to find Tully, a cranky old man, talking to a ghost. Tully chases them off with a gun, but the trio of young detectives--especially the intrepid Elsbeth--is so intrigued that they go back again, forming an unlikely alliance with Tully as they attempt to uncover a long buried secret and free the spirit of Penaki.
As with all of Lazar's novels, the books stand alone, with Lazar providing enough back material to enable readers to catch on quickly, but fans of the entire series will really enjoy the layering effect that comes from knowing Gus, Elsbeth and Siegfried at different stages of their lives, and of seeing hints and pivotal moments that led to events and character traits that appear in later books. There are plenty of links between the books too. As always, the writing is beautiful and delicate, rich with musical influence - in this case, the music of the 1960s, with the lovely local setting of the Genesee Valley. There are touches of history too as we learn about the Groveland Ambuscade, and delicious food that Gus' mother cooks and Gus eats with relish:
Here you go. Now see, I've chopped up these things to add to them like toppings." She pointed to the bowls lined up like little soldiers in a row. "Shredded cheese, black olives, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce. And this sauce here is to drizzle over the top."
Gus himself is a great observer, and he pays great attention to the details of his surroundings, which really adds depth and interest to the book as we explore with his point of view.
The warmth between the characters, the families, and the characters they meet is obvious in this tight-knit community, with the mystery unfolding gently. The book doesn't shy from real issues, including homophobia, historical lies, murder, betrayal, and massacre, everything unfolds so gently, and with such good humour, that reading the book is an absolute joy. Despite the serious issues that the book addresses, this is as suitable for a young adult reader as for an adult, and will appeal to wide audience. It's clear that Lazar has come to know and love his characters and every time he revisits them, he brings out new nuances and depths, so that returning to a Gus Lazar mystery is like meeting an old friend once again.
