Harvestman Lodge

by Cameron Judd

“I believe you can do it, Curtis. I think you’ve known for years that what makes you jerk and shake when you cross a pole shadow is something that isn’t in the shadow at all, but up in your mind. Right?”

  “Yeah … I’ve known that for nearly forever. It just hasn’t changed nothing.”

  “But if you try and keep trying, Curtis, and remind yourself that you’re just like everybody else, and everybody else crosses those shadows without being grabbed by them, well, then you can cross them too. Just try and keep trying until it gets easy.”

  “I can do it, Kendra. I can. And when I do, there’ll be nothing to keep me from just being a regular man, working and driving a car and just being like everybody else. You wait and see if I don’t do that! So please don’t tell that man yes just yet. Give me time to show you I can make something better of myself. Okay?”

  “Curtis, he hasn’t really asked me yet. Just told me he plans to ask. Once he does, I don’t know how long he’ll let me go without giving him an answer. If I drag him on too long, he might find another lady to ask, and I’d be left all by myself, for good. Alone.”

  “Not alone. Not never. Not as long as I’m in this world, Kendra. You can count on that.”

  “Well … okay.”

  He squinted at her. “Okay what?”

  “Okay … I’ll not rush. I’ll give it all time.”

  Never had a man’s face revealed so much relief. Curtis took some cleansing, tension-relieving deep breaths and smiled across the table at her.

  “You watch me when I cross the parking lot today, Kendra. You watch.”

  “I will.”

  “My coffee’s getting cold. Can I get some more?”

  “Go ahead. They give you a couple of free refills here.”

  “I’ll get you some more, too.” He grabbed both cups and headed for the counter.

  When the coffee drinking and doughnut eating was done, Curtis and Kendra returned to the library, where Curtis enthusiastically admired Kendra’s damaged, twenty-year-old Belvedere parked out back, then visited Kendra’s small and battered desk in a corner of the book-repair room and bragged very sincerely on her “nice office.”

  AMBER GOODE RETURNED FOR Curtis as she had said she would, but she did not get out of her car and come in to meet his friend. Instead she idled the car in the middle of the library parking area, looking impatiently toward the tinted glass front window of the building to see if Curtis was aware she was there. She was about to rudely honk the horn when she saw movement on the other side of the window and made out two forms, a man and a woman.

  The man was Curtis, and he came out two minutes later. The woman remained inside, only faintly visible behind the darkened glass. Curtis had a happy manner and springing step as he advanced toward Amber’s car. Then he stopped abruptly, noticing only then the pole shadow that lay between him and the car. Amber had not noticed it earlier or would have parked in way to let him avoid it.

  Curtis frowned at the shadow, then muttered silently to himself. Pulling his shoulders up straight, he turned for a second and looked back through the library window at Kendra to make sure she could see him, then with no more hesitation than it took to whisper a fast prayer walked into and through the pole shadow with not even a wince. On the far side of it, he sighed in relief, turned and beamed a big smile back toward the library window and gave a thumbs-up. Amber saw the woman beyond the window give the same signal right back.

  “How’d you do that, Curtis?” Amber asked as he settled into the car, so happy now that he was chuckling under his breath. She hoped he could not smell on her own breath the three beers that had washed down her lunchtime pizza, and hoped too that she was as good at handling her alcohol as she liked to believe she was. It was a middling good drive back to Tylerville, and she already had one DUI on her record.

  “It was easy,” Curtis said. “Kendra told me I could do it, so I did. I did it good. Just walked through that shadow like it was nothing.”

  “You sure did, my friend. You ready to get back home now?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” His grin became even broader. “I did it, Miss Amber! I really did it!”

  “You surely did, and I’m proud of you.”

  “Me too. I’m proud of me. Real proud!” But he mulled something over for a moment. “Miss Amber, I heard somebody say once on the radio that it’s a sin to be proud. Is that right?”

  “Curtis, honey, when you got a list of sins the like of mine, the glare the big ones throw off blinds you to the little ones. You don’t even notice them. And anyway, no, I don’t think it’s a sin for you to be proud of yourself for what you just did. I think it’s a good thing. Not even a twitch! Not even a blink! You treated that shadow like it was nothing, and then it was nothing! You did that, all on your own!”

  “Who’s Curtis-crazy now, Miss Amber, huh?”

  “Nobody in this car, Curtis. Nobody at all.”

  “JUST WHAT BROUGHT YOU up to this part of the county today to begin with, Reverend?” Melinda asked as the exploration of Harvestman Lodge came to an end and the three headed for the door.

  “Just putting flowers on a grave not far from here,” Feely replied. “I saw your car parked outside the lodge and decided I should investigate to make sure nobody was committing any vandalism inside.”

  “Fortunately we left our cans of spray paint in the Bronco,” Melinda said. “But you know, more seriously, it is amazing that this big old empty building hasn’t been vandalized. I saw very little graffiti or physical damage. You’d think your spooky goth kids would be drawn to a place with a dark and mysterious reputation.”

  “I’ve wondered about the lack of vandalism myself,” Feely said. “I suspect that Benton might have a periodic watchman about the place, maybe only at certain times but frequently enough to keep would-be intruders cautious. The times I’ve come up here I’ve not encountered any watchman, but maybe that’s just happenstance.”

  “If somebody’s watching, they might have seen us come in here … or see us now, coming out,” Eli said as Feely pushed open the front door and waved Melinda outside. Hearing what Eli was saying, she became instantly edgy and quickly hustled to her car, getting inside fast, fumbling the key into the ignition. Eli followed almost as hastily into the passenger seat.

  Eli lowered the passenger window slightly. “Where did you park, Kyle?”

  “Over near the grave,” he said.

  “So there’s a cemetery near here? Any connection to Harvestman Lodge?”

  “No real cemetery, just a private burial spot.”

  “Oh. Okay. Listen, thanks for the information today. It was interesting, and educational to boot.”

  “Enjoyed it myself, grim though some of the subject matter might be.”

  “I can’t believe such a thing was going on here, in my own home county,” Melinda said. “It just doesn’t feel like it could be possible.”

  “Yes,” said Feely. “It’s the kind of thing you might expect in some big urban center famous for vice and wickedness. But evil has tendrils, friends, and sometimes their reach is long.”

  “Can we drive you to your car?” Melinda asked.

  “I’ll just walk … it isn’t far away.”

  Feely watched Melinda and Eli drive away. The Bronco turned left rather than right, going further up the inclining road rather than back down toward Flea Plank. He wondered where they were going, decided it didn’t matter, and circled the building to look at the gaping hole in the rear wall. He’d encourage Benton Sadler to get the damage repaired soon. The open wall was as strong an invitation to badly-intentioned intruders as could be given.

  Melinda was right: it was amazing and inexplicably fortunate that the building hadn’t been thoroughly vandalized, having sat empty for the better part of a decade.

  Feely walked back to the path that led through the trees toward the the cave where an unknown dead girl was secretly interred. He was no longer sure if she had been Junie in life, or the barfly Shelia who had made the bad
choice of going home with Roy Tate on what proved to be a fateful night twenty-three years before.

  Either way, the flowers were there in remembrance, for whatever good that would do.

  THERE WAS NO PARTICULAR significance to the fact Melinda had opted not to immediately head back down toward Flea Plank when she drove away from Harvestman Lodge. She simply couldn’t remember what was farther up the road and so seized the opportunity to do some rediscovery.

  There wasn’t much to be reminded of … a few houses and mobile homes, lots of barns, an old school building from the 1930s that had been abandoned, converted into a community center, then abandoned again. No less than three churches within a two-mile stretch, all three of them some variety of Baptist. A few picturesque old farmhouses, and a couple of rectangular red-brick ranch houses from the 1960s, utterly ill-suited to the classic small-farm landscape.

  At a crossroads, Melinda turned around, heading back. As they passed Harvestman Lodge again, a short distance beyond it they saw Feely pulling out onto the road and fell in behind him. Feely gave no indication he noticed them.

  “He’s a good man, seems to me,” Melinda said.

  “I agree,” Eli replied. “Big heart and big mind, and just odd enough to be interesting.”

  “Will you go to his church with me tomorrow?”

  “I will. I have a feeling he preaches sermons worth hearing.”

  “Remarkable, I think, that he and you both independently developed an interest in the history of Harvestman Lodge, even if out of different motives.”

  “So far, he’s carried his interest further than I have. Talking to so many people, actually getting a few answers. I can’t find anybody willing to spill whatever beans they’ve got.”

  “He’s a minister, with a calm and comforting demeanor, and that probably makes people less afraid to open up with him. With a minister, you have the presumption of confidentiality. With a newspaper guy, or a TV reporter like me, you have the exact opposite.”

  “That probably does figure into it. And maybe I just haven’t asked the right people yet.”

  Ahead, Feely’s car was pulling to a halt at the stop sign where Harvestman Lodge Road butted the two-lane. Melinda stopped behind him, and apparently for the first time, Feely realized who was at his rear. He waved, eyes on his rearview mirror. The pair in the Bronco waved back.

  “You hungry?” Melinda asked. “We could stop at Flea Plank Grocery again and have a sandwich.”

  “I’m good, actually. That breakfast was big enough to hold me a few hours.”

  “Same here. We’ll go on to your grandparents’ house, then, if you still want to do that.”

  “I do.” Eli craned his neck and looked out at the sky. “Building up for rain, it appears.” A roll of thunder, far in the distance, came back as if in answer.

  “Harmony Road, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  They were just then coming around a slight bend, Feely still ahead of them. The Flea Plank Grocery came into view and Feely made an abrupt turn into the parking lot.

  “Must be hungry,” Eli said.

  “Look … that Range Rover is still there, and so is Buster Crosswaite’s truck. They must still be talking, or maybe shooting footage.”

  “Yeah … there they are, around to the side. Looks like they’re shooting B-roll.” Eli smiled. “You see? I do listen to what you tell me. I know what B-roll is.”

  “Genius, pure genius … hey!”

  Feely had just skidded to a gravel-slinging stop on the same end of the store building where the taping was under way, and came out of the vehicle in a bound, very effectively interrupting the video work going on.

  “What the hey?” Eli muttered. “Why do you think he did that?”

  “Don’t know,” Melinda replied. “Maybe he knows the PBS guy … hey, I know him, too!”

  “Really? How?”

  “We were in high school together, and he started out in the university with me, then transferred to UT.”

  “Good for him!”

  “After graduation he went to work for PBS. He’s produced quite a few great news and documentary programs, most of them about Tennessee culture and history.”

  Melinda pulled into the far side of the Flea Plank Grocery parking lot almost as quickly as Feely had done at the other end of the building.

  “Going to have a visit, are we?” Eli asked. “Hey, this isn’t an old high school boyfriend, is it?”

  “Lord, no! He’s a nice enough guy, but nothing close to my type!”

  “Lacking my dashing handsomeness and charm, huh?”

  “Exactly. Or maybe it’s because you can belch so much louder than he can. A girl looks for an alpha male, you know.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “C’mon. Let me introduce you to Len Cosner.”

  They circled around the front of the building. There they found Feely in rapt conversation with a stocky young man, presumably Len, with hair stiffly spiked on his round head. He was in mid-sentence when he saw Melinda, and stammered to a halt.

  “Mel? Is that you, girl?”

  “Yeah, Len, it sure is!” Melinda went to him and hugged him hard. “Sorry to interrupt, but when I saw it was you, I had to stop.”

  “I’m glad you did. This is amazing! I came up to do some work with Mr. Crosswaite and his wife, and then I get the bonus of seeing two friends, first Preacher Kyle, then my old pal Mel Buckingham!”

  “How do you know Reverend here?”

  Feely answered her question. “Len produced a fine PBS documentary last year about the involvement of East Tennessee churches in social justice issues. I and my congregation were lucky enough to be among those featured. Len did a terrific job … and we even had some discussion of a possible future project together that never quite came together, but maybe still could, someday.” Feely looked over at Eli. “That one is something you’d definitely find interesting, my friend. And part of the reason I got so heavily involved in that personal investigation we were talking about just a while ago.”

  “You talking about … ” Eli thumbed back in the general direction of Harvestman Lodge.

  “Exactly.”

  Buster Crosswaite had wandered closer. “I heard that! You wouldn’t be dredging up that old Harvestman business, wouldja?”

  “We were, sir,” Cosner said. “An interesting subject, so far poorly illuminated.”

  Buster frowned and shook his head. “Some things are like me and my cousin: cast light on the subject and it just makes it more ugly. You’ll find not many people are willing to talk about that old lodge and its secrets, and most that will talk don’t have any solid facts.”

  “Do you know those facts, Buster?” Feely asked. “The specifics, I mean? The who and when and why?”

  “All I know is rumors, and if they’re close to whatever’s real, I’d rather not know what the real is. I’ve never been one to find any entertainment in knowing bad things.”

  Eli asked, “If someone did want to know the facts, sir, who should they ask?”

  “From what I hear, Coleman Caldwell knows more about it than most. Maybe wrote some about it in one of his books. He’s had several things published, you know. But supposedly he’s got a lot written that he just put away and didn’t do nothing with. You know who Coleman Caldwell is, I reckon: the man who lives in that overgrown house in the southeast part of Tylerville.”

  “Yes, sir. I know who he is. I just haven’t had the opportunity to make his acquaintance. Yet.”

  THE IMPROMPTU LITTLE GATHERING in the Flea Plank Grocery parking lot didn’t last long, Cosner needing to get back to Knoxville for other duties. Within ten minutes of their unplanned stop, Melinda and Eli had said another farewell to Feely and were back on the way to Harmony Road and the empty farm home of Eli’s late grandparents. Slade played on the radio, “Run Runaway.”

  Just as when he was near the place during his county tour with Jake Lundy, the old farmstead looked much smaller t
han it loomed in Eli’s childhood memories. The porch surrounding the simple white farmhouse had seemed a mile long when Eli had circled it on the run as a little boy, but it had shrunk over the years. The shaded, sloping yard had somehow lost its remembered vastness. Only the house’s windows seemed as large as memory cast them, but now it was because they were dark and empty, big dead black eyes of the past.

  Had Eli been driving, he might have put aside all sentimental journey ambitions and bypassed the place. He had no real business going there, the people who had made the dwelling meaningful to him now gone forever. Eli felt a rise in his chest and throat as Melinda turned down the driveway and crossed the little bridge over the narrow creek, climbing the driveway further as it veered around the house toward the barn, milking shed, corn-crib, and outbuildings.

  “Where should I park?”

  “Pull up beside the corn-crib, that building right there. The car is less likely to be seen there. We don’t really have any business being here, since my family no longer owns this property, and it’s always possible that somebody might nail us for trespassing, if we’re seen.”

  “Well, we survived trespassing in Harvestman Lodge. Maybe our luck will hold up here, too.”

  They exited the Bronco.

  Chapter Thirty

  AS ELI STOOD BESIDE the window in the empty living room, on the spot where his grandparents always placed their Christmas tree, he realized how pointless it was, in one way, to pay call on a house where only the past lived. One might as well dig up the corpse of a dead loved one and absurdly expect to find what once had been.

  There was no warmth in this house now, no bustle of movement in the bedrooms upstairs, nor sound of pots and skillets clattering in the kitchen in the far side of the house. No muffled sound of his grandmother singing, while sweating over the hot stove, some old song she’d heard on last weekend’s Grand Ole Opry.

  They’d entered through the mudroom at the back of the house, near the weed-grown garden spot where once vegetables had been grown in pristine rows, not a stray weed allowed to survive between them. The old wooden screened door had been just as flimsy as Eli had expected it would be, and three quick tugs had sufficed to pop it open.