by Sara Barnard
A cold knot settled in the pit of my stomach. “Um, Mom, that’s really weird.” I kneaded my hands together. They were clammy.
Mom laughed, but it wasn’t an easy laugh like before. “Here, honey, don’t worry. I’ll just change the station.”
The air horn of the eighteen-wheeler sounded like a freight train. “Mom, look out!” The approaching semi appeared to have lost control and was swerving over both lanes. Its high-beamed headlights were growing closer by the millisecond.
Mom flung her arm across me, pressing me back against the seat. The screeching of brakes ripped at my eardrums like rabid cats. Mom’s screams echoed mine and the force of the spinning car kept me paralyzed against the worn upholstery.
In an instant, it was over.
Don Henley’s voice sang into the eerie calm as a rogue chill made me hug my arms to my chest. Desperado was still playing through the speakers.
Mom was breathing heavily beside me. “Thank God he didn’t hit us. Or did he?”
The giant truck sped on down the road, roaring out of sight, horn still blaring.
Charged with a sudden surge of adrenaline, I leapt from my seat and into the back. Snatching Mom’s bag, I clawed my way through her things until my hand came to rest on the scratchy wooden handle of the mallet. Struggling to remain calm, I opened the door and gave it a hearty fling into the brush alongside the highway. “See ya!”
The invisible lead curtain that had settled over us, lifted as quick as it had come, when the car restarted with ease. Mom and I rode the rest of the way home in silence, both of us afraid to say what we were thinking.
As we pulled into our five-acre plot that sat at the intersection of Highway 7 and the main road into town, the cold knot finally began to disappear from inside of me.
Once inside, Mom headed to the kitchen and, out of habit, flipped on her radio. Thankfully Pat Benatar was rocking the airwaves. Without a word, I went straight to my room and started tidying up before Dad and Rhea got home.
I can’t wait to give them both a big hug and apologize to Dad.
Chapter 5
“We’re ho-ome,” Dad announced a little while later, his voice wafting in through my open window. “Rhea, where are my two other best girls?”
Mom and I dashed out the front door together. Rhea stood admiring the newly sprouted daffodils in the flowerbed while Dad unloaded the car. The dam of silence Mom and I had constructed following the incident burst when we set eyes on Dad and Rhea.
“Dad!” I grabbed him and squeezed.
“Honey!” Mom embraced him, me, and Rhea—who had come to investigate the hug-a-thon.
“Whoa, hello to y’all, too,” Dad answered.
Tears threatened to spill over onto my cheeks. “I’m so sorry about how I acted,” I confessed into his shoulder.
“You’re never going to believe what—” Mom started.
Rhea pushed her way to the middle of us with hard little fists. “Let Daddy talk first,” she commanded.
Mom and I fell silent. Rhea didn’t often command anything.
Dad smiled. “Rhea here spilled her chocolate milk on the ride home, and we had to pull over to clean her up.” He patted Rhea’s messy curls. “So we went for a little walk.”
Too excited for her daddy’s slow storytelling, Rhea finished for him. “We found your mallet. The one from the story!”
As Dad pulled the mallet out from his back pocket, the blood drained from my face. The cold knot from earlier sank into my stomach with a newfound heaviness.
Mom lifted both hands to her mouth. “Jeremy, we threw that out,” she whispered.
“Threw it out?” Dad echoed, his uninformed grin slowly fading. “Why in the world would you do that?”
The DJ’s voice, tinged with urgency, chimed in from the kitchen radio. “All listeners traveling Highway 7 beware. We have a report of a hijacked 18-wheeler, last seen headed south from Lamesa towards Odessa. The hijacker, a white male in his mid-20s, is wearing a black cowboy hat and a long leather duster. Everyone be on the lookout for this modern-day desperado.”
“No,” Mom whispered, tears springing to her eyes.
The song wafting from the kitchen followed her softly spoken word…Desperado.
Icy fingers of fear began to claw at my stomach as the growing din of a blaring air horn filled the sinister stillness.
“What in the world?” Dad mused, shielding his eyes from the midday sun with the mallet.
The monstrous truck’s exhaust pipes looked like horns as they came into view.
“Jeremy, no,” Mom cried.
“It’s the hijacked semi,” I screamed.
Mom grabbed Rhea, flinging her into the safety of our brick house. The truck wove haphazardly over the two empty lanes of Highway 7. At the intersection, it made a sharp turn.
“Shelby,” Dad called. “It’s headed straight for us. Get inside!” Dad barreled toward me as though he meant to run clean through me on the way into the house.
As Dad neared me, I managed to dodge his grip and snatch the mallet from his hand.
Instead of running in, I ran toward the truck. The bright lights of the big rig assaulted my eyes, almost blinding me. Shielding my face with one arm, I waved the mallet above my head with the other. A freezing blast of air whirled around me.
“Here,” I shrieked. “Take it.” With the horn blasting in my ears, I cocked my arm and flung the mallet at the giant truck as hard as I could. The stench of burnt rubber was hot in my nose. I covered my head and screamed, waiting for the crushing steel to smash me dead.
***
When I opened my eyes, the truck was gone. I could still smell the faint scent of hot rubber and my teeth still chattered from the arctic burst. I rubbed my hands up and down my arms. The warmth rushed back, getting rid of the goose bumps, as cold swirled down around my feet before disappearing completely.
Where did he go? No normal rig could disappear like that. I lifted my hand to shield my eyes from the sun and realized I no longer held the mallet.
I threw it at the trucker, so it must be in the street. I stepped onto the sidewalk. But where is it? And where is that truck?
I turned to see Mom and Dad peering out the front door. There were no more noises as they rushed to embrace me. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck.
Did I imagine the whole thing?
Before any of us could question aloud what exactly had happened, the friendly honk-honk of a trucker’s horn sounded from the road.
Rhea dashed out the front door, waving. “Bye-bye,” she shouted.
The trucker honked again, nothing visible through the window except his monstrous black hat and waving hand. He turned off onto an old oilfield road, just south of our property.
“He won’t get far going that way,” Dad mused, his arms still around Mom and me. “It’s a dead end.”
“Did y’all see his license plate?” Mom asked, incredulous.
I rushed to the middle of the street to see if I could catch a glimpse.
It read DSPRADO.
Epilogue
Whenever I read a story, I always come away asking the same question ... was any part of what I just read based in truth. I want to answer that for you. The story of the haunted mallet is a true one, experienced by me in the early 1990’s. As in the story, my great grandmother (Great), grandmother (Non), aunt (Aunt Jay), cousin (China), my mom (Mom), and I were in fact driving back to Odessa from the annual family reunion in Lamesa, Texas.
On the way out of town, we had hit a few antique stores and garage sales ... none of us were ever in a hurry to leave from the family reunion. Finally, we turned onto the dusty two-lane highway that would carry us home. Along the way, Great pointed out to us the tarantula’s that reared up when we passed and how they were black streaks paralleling the highway as they migrated. We pointed out wildflowers and took turns regaling tales of the past weekend that had been filled with lots of good food,
good times, good people, and good swimming in the motel pool.
At some point, Great began rummaging through a box she’d gotten for cheap from the last garage sale. She pulled out a purple bottle and gave it to Aunt Jay. That bottle later turned out to be worth a few hundred dollars! She gave a knick-knack to me and one to China, and something to Mom. When she got to the bottom of the box, she found a wooden mallet.
Immediately, she cut her finger on the mallet – though none of us could see where she could have done so. As we were trying to figure out what happened, the eighteen-wheeler we were passing shot something out from under it, making Non jerk the wheel. Of course, Great hit her nose on something and cut it. Now, not only was her finger bleeding, but blood gushed from her sliced nose, too. Without a second thought, she flung the mallet back into the box, gave it a good cussing, and all was forgotten ... until Aunt Jay decided the mallet would be better kept in her home.
Every time Aunt Jay brought out the mallet, something strange happened. Once, a chair broke. Another time, a bottle broke. She hasn’t taken the mallet out in quite some time ... at least not that I know of. She claims to have lost it.
I don’t know if all the strange occurrences were in fact related to the old wooden mallet from the garage sale in Lamesa, TX over two decades ago. I don’t know if it was in fact a haunted mallet, as we all claimed, or if all of the out of place happenings were simply coincidences.
What I do know is that, thanks to that little chunk of cheap wood, the women in our family now have an awesome ghostly story to pass down and tell as eye witnesses and a spooky memory to share when we all get together, which happens all too rarely.
Perhaps it was all coincidence. But all I know is that it is certainly more fun to dream of the Old West legend that may have been the root cause of all the strange occurrences around the haunted wooden mallet of the Smith/Price Family Reunion of the Early 1990’s.
About the Author
Sara Barnard, who was most likely born into the wrong century, is mother to four awesome children. In addition to Rebekah’s Quilt, she has authored the historical romance Everlasting Heart series, consisting of bestselling A Heart on Hold, which was also a 2012 RONE award finalist, A Heart Broken, A Heart at Home, and A Heart Forever Wild – all from 5 Prince Publishing. She also writes for the younger among us. Chunky Sugars is a picture book from 5 Prince Kids and her independently published children’s nonfiction titles, The ABC’s of Oklahoma Plants and The Big Bad Wolf Really Isn’t so Big and Bad, have hit bestseller lists several times. She and her family make their home in the far reaches of the west Texas desert with the Javalina, mesquite trees, and of course, lots and lots of oil.
Other books by Sara Barnard
For Grown Ups:
A Heart on Hold (An Everlasting Heart, #1)
A Heart Broken (An Everlasting Heart, #2)
A Heart at Home (An Everlasting Heart, #3)
Rebekah’s Quilt
For Kids:
Chunky Sugars
Little Spoon
The ABCs of Oklahoma Plants
The ABCs of Texas Plants
The Big Bad Wolf Really Isn’t so Big and Bad
Look for these titles in audio book form, as well.
Visit sarabarnardbooks.com for more information.
Other titles published by
www.5princebooks.com
The Copper Witch Jessica Dall
Lonely Hearts MJ Kane
Home Run Bernadette Marie
Blissful Tragedy Amy L Gale
How to Have an Affair Lindsay Harper
The Soul of Jesus Doug Simpson
The Girl before Eve Lisa J Hobman
Courting Darkness Melynda Price
Owned By the Ocean Christine Steendam
Sullivan’s Way Wilhelmina Stolen
The Library Carmen DeSousa
Rebekah’s Quilt Sara Barnard
Unforgiving Plains Christine Steendam
Love Songs Bernadette Marie
The End Denise Moncrief
On Thin Ice Bernadette Marie
Through the Glass Lisa J. Hobman
Indiscretion Tonya Lampley
The Elvis Presley I Knew Robert C. Cantwell
Finding Hope Bernadette Marie
Over the Edge Susan Lohrer
Encore Bernadette Marie
Split Decisions Carmen DeSousa
Matchmakers Bernadette Marie
Rocky Road Susan Lohrer
Stutter Creek Ann Swann
The Perfect Crime P. Hindley, S. Goodsell
Lost and Found Bernadette Marie
A Heart at Home Sara Barnard
Soul Connection Doug Simpson
Bridge Over the Atlantic Lisa Hobman
An Unexpected Admirer Bernadette Marie
