Strange Doin's in the Pine Hills

by Ardath Mayhar

  We never asked another soul about Miz Livingstone, and Grandpa couldn’t recall anything from one day to the next. Far as anybody knew, we didn’t know she existed. That was just what we wanted.

  Things rocked along till winter, which in our part of the country comes about the first of November and is more wet than cold. We’d set around the fireplace, with Grandpa on his cot close enough to keep him warm, and swap tales or jokes or plans for the future.

  One night we forgot ourselves just a little and tried some of the homemade wine we’d made that summer out of wild plums and sugar and yeast. It was stronger than you’d think, and we all three got a little high.

  Denny and I started talkin’, in a general way, about robberies. Grandpa chirked up more than he had in months and began talkin’ a blue streak.

  “You mention stealin’, boys. I tried that once, when I was young and ignorant. Got in with the Youngblood boys from across the river, and they was mean and ornery as folks can get. They decided to rob old Miz Livingstone’s folks, the Fosters, up at the big house in the woods.

  “Everybody knew they had money, and Sal and Rooster talked me into goin’ to that house with ’em one night. At the last minute, I got so scared I mighty nigh puked, and they laughed at me and went ahead, leavin’ me out in the yard, sick as a poisoned dog.”

  Denny opened his mouth to ask a question, but I stopped him. Grandpa never got back to the same place you stopped him at, and we’d be sure to miss the end of this story and get the start of some other we didn’t care about. Sure enough, he plowed right ahead, which he wouldn’t have done if he’d been asked anything.

  “I got rid of everything I had, down to my shoe laces, but by then I was out of the notion of taking up robbery. So I waited. And I waited. I waited till sunrise, and no Sal and no Rooster ever come back, though old Mr. Foster went out to milk their cow right on time.”

  I wanted to ask a question now, but I knew better. Holdin’ my breath, I waited to see if Grandpa would keep on talkin’.

  He sighed long and gusty, cleared his throat, and looked into the fire. “Nobody never seen Sal and Rooster Youngblood again. I taken it that they got the money and skedaddled without stoppin’ to speak to me. Wouldn’t have blamed ’em for that. But their folks never heard a word either, and it’s been—lordy, it’s been sixty-five year or more since that day.”

  Well, Denny and I nodded at each other. We’d left home too, and nobody but my Uncle Ned, who had been in stir and knew the ropes, would ever hear from us again either. Still, it was funny that the Fosters never made any stink about being robbed.

  “Ever been any talk about where they kept their cash?” Denny asked, keeping his tone casual.

  The old man cackled. “Been lots of speculatin’ but no provin’,” he said. “I think they kept it where anybody who lived through the Big Depression keeps any cash he might have. Under the mattress. Only safe place there is.”

  Well, it was sure and certain that if Grandpa happened to have any money that was where it might be, but we sort of steered clear of robbin’ him yet. He was Denny’s grandpa, after all. But it sounded reasonable that if the Youngbloods didn’t get all the cash and ran off out of fear, the old woman might just hide it under her mattress. Old folks seem to be alike, when it comes down to it.

  We climbed trees around that old house, peepin’ in windows after dark to see which one was hers. The downstairs was only three rooms, one great big kitchen on one side of the entrance hall, and two fairly big ones on the other. Parlor and dining room, I guessed.

  Upstairs there was only one room ever lit after dark, and that had to be old Biddy’s bedroom.

  * * * * * * *

  We decided to take advantage of her work in the garden, which even in November was still goin’ as she banked rows of collard greens or laid down compost on the rest. We climbed the big ash tree that rose beside a front window and managed to get the thing open without breakin’ it. Wasn’t even locked, if you can believe that!

  We had hoped to search her bedroom while she was out, so we headed down the long, dingy hall toward the back. Before we could get there we heard the back door creak open and slam shut, and slow steps start up the stairs. What a disappointment! We’d just have to come back at night. If she woke up—well, it would be weeks before anybody checked on her, and by that time we’d be gone, with nothing to connect us to her death. Includin’ Grandpa.

  We’d made up our minds, so it was time to get the thing done. If she was as rich as we thought, we’d be able to drive Grandpa’s old pickup to Houston, abandon it in some junk yard, then fly anyplace we decided to go. The plan was foolproof.

  That night it was chilly and damp, though not actually rainin’. We slunk through the woods on foot, not wantin’ anybody on the road to remember seeing the old pickup out of its place. Dead leaves flapped and the ground squished under our feet; a mournful owl hooted among the trees.

  I was so excited that nothing bothered me, and warm, almost boundin’ along, with Denny trampin’ silently behind me. When we got within sight of the house, the upstairs light was already on. She worked hard and went to bed early. We crept up on the wide veranda to get out of the damp. The light from her window made a bright square against the shrubbery around at the side of the house, and we could keep an eye on it from the end of our shelter.

  It went out before we were quite ready, but that was all right. We wanted to give her plenty of time to get to sleep. It would be better for everybody if she slept right through being robbed.

  When the house had been dark for a couple of hours, we climbed that tree again and checked out the window. It was still unlocked, and now it was easy to open, for we had unstuck it before.

  Slippin’ inside, we crossed the floor in our sock feet and eased the door open without any noise.

  The door to Biddy’s room was closed but, of course, not locked. It swung open on oiled hinges. I went down on all-fours, and Denny did the same. We crawled forward, guidin’ ourselves by the dark shapes of furniture against the pale sky beyond the windows.

  The old woman sighed and turned on the bed, and that gave us the right direction. Denny slid up one side and I went up the other, and we started working our hands up under the mattress. It was thick and heavy and smelled stale and old, like the woman on top of it.

  She turned again, almost mashin’ my arm flat, and I was still as a ghost. I listened for Denny but couldn’t hear a thing. Then something touched the top of my head—something cold and hard and round. It tapped twice, and I caught my breath. Another tap, harder this time. I nodded against the pressure.

  Then I heard Denny gasp and I wondered how she managed to be on both sides of the bed at once. For an instant the pressure disappeared. Then I heard a thump, followed by a groan, and I figured that Denny had knocked her out. I rose to my feet and found a rifle barrel against my mouth.

  It pushed me back, there was a click, and the bedside lamp came on, to show me a dumpy little old woman in a long nightgown, holding the rifle as steady as death itself. Beyond the bed I could see Denny’s back. He wasn’t movin’.

  “Lady...,” I began, but she cut me off.

  “Shut up, boy. I know what you’re here for and you’re not the first to come here for the same thing. My daddy killed a couple of young thieves when I was a girl. Buried them in the new-tilled garden ground. Nobody ever looked for ’em here, and if they had they wouldn’t have found ’em.

  “I’ve had to take care of a few more in my time. Good rich garden ground I have out there. You’ll fit right in. Now pick up your friend there. No use an old woman like me having to strain her back toting two husky boys so far.

  “Move!”

  So there I was with Denny over my shoulder, edgin’ down those steep stairs. My shadow looked like a monster ahead of me, and behind me was that awful old woman, who had swapped her rifle for a big revolver that ought to be too heavy for her even to lift.

  We went through the kitchen, out of the back doo
r, down the path toward the garden, invisible in the misting rain. Denny groaned and almost waked up, but there was another thump and he went limp again. He was the lucky one.

  “Stop here,” she said. “Put him down right there. Kick that mulch back—yes, like that. Good. Likely you never did anything that useful before in your life.”

  Shakin’, sobbin’ under my breath, I did what she said, knowing there was no use beggin’.

  Those dark eyes had never shown mercy in her life, I felt sure. Her face was calm, her mouth a straight line as she nodded again.

  The pistol rose in her pudgy hand. The hammer went back. I screamed and passed out.

  When I came to, I was here in the constable’s office, and Denny was lying where he now sits.

  She’d done the whole thing to punish us, to scare us, and lord knows she did what she intended.

  Thank God we hadn’t killed Grandpa yet! And we didn’t get a chance to kill Biddy Livingstone, which may or may not be a good thing.

  I’m still shakin’, and I’m still scared, because they’ve got a deputy on his way from the city with a murder warrant. That old bastard who killed himself left a note, damn him! We’ll be charged with murder, the constable tells me, even if we didn’t snuff anybody local.

  So here we are, lookin’ at life—or worse—and Uncle Ned’ll spend every dime I sent him for the last year.

  It just ain’t fair!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “You Can’t Go Home Again” was first published in The Horror Show, Winter, 1988.

  “Down in the Bottomlands” was first published in East Texas Outdoorsman, February 1988.

  “Lonesome Canefield Blues” was first published in New Mystery, Vol. 1, Issue 1.

  “Hallimore’s Dog” was first published in Dead of Night, Spring, 1995.

  “Fungus Grows in the Dark” was first published in Hardboiled, 1994.

  “Stalking Woman” was first published in New Frontiers anthology, 1990.

  “A Most Genteel Pursuit” was first published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, February, 1995.

  “The Creek, It Done Riz” was first published in Cold Blood, edited by Richard T. Chizmar, Mark V. Ziesing, 1991.

  “Coon Hunt with Distractions” was first published by Weirdbook, Autumn, 1990.

  “Crawfish” was first published in Psychological Perspectives in 1971, and in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stories to Be Read with the Lights On, 1973.

  “The Wallow” was first published in Noir, 1994.

  “Stiff Sentence” was first published in Hardboiled, 1994.

  “Digging Up Arthur” was first published in Mystery Scene Reader, 1987.

  “Night of the Cougar” was first published in Best of the West, edited by Joe R. Lansdale, Doubleday, 1986.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  The author of sixty-two books, more than forty of them published commercially, Ardath Mayhar began her career in the early eighties with science fiction novels from Doubleday and TSR. Atheneum published several of her young adult and children’s novels. Changing focus, she wrote westerns (as Frank Cannon) and mountain man novels (as John Killdeer), four prehistoric Indian books under her own name, and historical western High Mountain Winter under the byline Frances Hurst.

  Recently she has been working with on-line publishers. A Road of Stars was her first original novel to appear in print-on-demand format. Many of her out-of-print titles are now available from e-publishers fictionwise.com and renebooks.com; many other novels are being published by the Borgo Press Imprint of Wildside Press and Amazon.com.

  Now in her eighties, Mayhar was widowed in 1999, after forty-one years of marriage, and has four grown sons. She now works at home, writing short fiction and nonfiction, and doing book doctoring professionally. Her web pages can be found at:

  w2.netdot.com/ardathm/ and

  http://ofearna.us/ books/mayhar.html

  BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY ARDATH MAYHAR

  The Absolutely Perfect Horse: A Novel of East Texas (with Marylois Dunn) * The Body in the Swamp: A Washington Shipp Mystery [Wash Shipp #2] * Born Rebel and The Guns of Livingston Frost: Two Short Novels [Wash Shipp #3] * Carrots and Miggle: A Novel of East Texas * The Clarrington Heritage: A Gothic Tale of Terror * Closely Knit in Scarlatt: A Novel of Suspense * Crazy Quilt: The Best Short Stories of Ardath Mayhar * Deadly Memoir: A Novel of Suspense * Death in the Square: A Washington Shipp Mystery [Wash Shipp #1] * The Door in the Hill: A Tale of the Turnipins * The Dropouts: A Tale of Growing Up in East Texas * The Exiles of Damaria: A Novel of Fantasy * Feud at Sweetwater Creek: A Novel of the Old West * The Fugitives: A Tale of Prehistoric Times * The Heirs of Three Oaks: A Novel of the Old West * High Mountain Winter: A Novel of the Old West * How the Gods Wove in Kyrannon: Tales of the Triple Moons * Hunters of the Plains: A Novel of Prehistoric America * Island in the Lake: A Novel of Native America * Khi to Freedom: A Science Fiction Novel * The Lintons of Skillet Bend: A Novel of East Texas * Lone Runner: A Novel of the Old West * Lords of the Triple Moons: A Science Fantasy Novel: Tales of the Triple Moons * The Loquat Eyes: More Tall Tales from Cotton County, Texas * Makra Choria: A Novel of High Fantasy * Medicine Dream: Being the Further Adventures of Burr Henderson * Messengers in White: A Science Fantasy Novel * The Methodist Bobcat and Other Tales * Monkey Station: A Novel of the Future (Macaque Cycle #1; with Ron Fortier) * People of the Mesa: A Novel of Native America * A Planet Called Heaven: A Science Fiction Novel * Prescription for Danger: A Novel of the Old West * Reflections; & Journey to an Ending: Collected Poems * A Road of Stars: A Fantasy of Life, Death, Love, and Art * Runes of the Lyre: A Science Fantasy Novel * The Saga of Grittel Sundotha: A Science Fantasy Novel * The Seekers of Shar-Nuhn: Tales of the Triple Moons * Shock Treatment: An Account of Granary’s War: A Science Fiction Novel * Slaughterhouse World * Slewfoot Sally and the Flying Mule: Tall Tales from Cotton County, Texas * Soul-Singer of Tyrnos: A Fantasy Novel * Strange Doin’s in the Pine Hills: Stories of Fantasy and Mystery in East Texas * Strange View from a Skewed Orbit: An Oddball Memoir * Through a Stone Wall: Lessons from Thirty Years of Writing * Timber Pirates: A Novel of East Texas (with Marylois Dunn) * Towers of the Earth: A Novel of Native America * Trail of the Seahawks: A Novel of the Future (Macaque Cycle #2; with R. Fortier) * The Tulpa: A Novel of Fantasy * Two-Moons and the Black Tower: A Novel of Fantasy * Vendetta: A Novel of the Old West * Warlock’s Gift: Tales of the Triple Moons * The World Ends in Hickory Hollow: A Novel of the Future * A World of Weirdities: Tales to Shiver By