by Thomas Cater
I popped a tissue from a box on a nearby desk and wiped the dust and grime from my nose and forehead.
“Virgil Stamper,” he announced in an accommodating voice.
He was short and stocky with long blond hair and a wind-burned face. His smile was wry and as suspect as his camouflage fatigues.
“I came here to bid on a house,” I said, inspecting my glasses for smudges and flakes of dander. “I guess I got here too late.”
The word ‘bid’ seemed to stir his curiosity.
“The house on Scary Creek?” he asked.
“I don’t know the location, but I like what I saw.”
“You’ve seen it?” He asked.
“Only a picture in the paper,” I replied.
Virgil’s eyes picked through a stack of listings and photos piled on a nearby desk.
“That was an old photo,” he said, searching through the papers and locating the print. “The house was a showplace, but now it’s run down. Some of the windows are broken and termites and dry rot have invaded the wooden porches. It needs work, but it’s still a bargain,” he concluded.
“It doesn’t sound like a bargain; sounds like it’s falling apart,” I said.
“It has a double-planked mini-ballroom on the second floor, four baths, a living room, dining room, study, library and six bedrooms. There are also several fireplaces, Italian marble mantles, tile floors in the bathrooms, cut-glass chandeliers, copper plumbing and a basement like Cheop’s tomb.”
Not being able to tender an offer was disheartening, but I suspect it would have cost a fortune. Until I settled my account with Myra, everything I acquired would be for her a takeover target.
“How much did it sell for?” I asked.
His upper lip curled in a cynical smile. He shook his head and sarcasm crept into his voice.
“It sold cheap,” he said, “only one bid, and it was a silent auction from out of state.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, sensing legal impropriety.
“It means sellers can pick the buyer, or take any offer.”
“Who were the sellers?” I asked.
“It was a tax sale; the county and a local bank.”
“Too bad;” I replied. “That house and I could have had a future.”
“We can talk to the new owner, or find something as desirable; Mister…what is your name?”
“Charlie Case,” I replied. I had not heard it spoken or credited to a photo in so long it stumbled over my tongue.
Virgil waved a finger in my face. “Mr. Case, I should have known. I’ve been wondering when you’d get in touch.”
“You have?” I asked, confused.
“Yes, I’ve been waiting for your call.”
“Why?” I asked, “Would you be waiting for my call?”
He shrugged patiently. “To tell you the good news, and let you know I received your draft.”
“You received … money from me?” I asked in disbelief.
There was a smile on his face and it would not go away. “Is this another joke, Mr. Case?”
“No,” I said, anxiously. “I’m not in the habit of joking about money, especially mine.”
“You are Charles Case from Washington D.C., aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t remember sending you a check.” I said. “How much was it?”
The expression on his face turned serious, and the line of his protruding jaw hardened. “I received a bank draft for five thousand dollars and a letter of credit from your bank 90 days ago. I must tell you, Mr. Case, if you have second thoughts about the purchase, there is nothing we can do now. The offer is in and you were the high bidder. In fact, you were the only bidder.”
A rush of adrenaline hit me with such force that it made me dizzy. For seconds I was unable to think clearly. I began to suspect that I was the victim of an elaborate ruse, or that Myra had somehow accessed my hidden account and was doing her best to impoverish me. I thought about my hasty departure from DC, and the man with Myra; I might have been wrong about their motives.
I pulled a checkbook from my pocket and examined the balance. It was much the same as it had been for the past few months, with few withdrawals greater than two hundred dollars.
“Do you remember the bank’s name the check was drawn on?” I asked.
“First National of Washington,” he said. “How could I forget? It isn’t often I get that kind of money telling me what to bid on.”
I did have a checking and savings account at the same bank, since it administered my inherited trust, but I was also a scrupulous bookkeeper. I would have remembered authorizing a check, unless someone was acting on my behalf and without my permission.
“So what did I bid on?” I asked.
“The Ryder mansion: the house on Scary Creek.”
I was confused, having trouble concentrating, or he was mumbling. In any event, his words were not clear. I was having second and third thoughts about Myra and her accomplice, or maybe he was not who or what I thought. A conspiracy was going on inside my head, or I had too many thoughts racing through my mind.
“I tried to phone,” Virgil said, “but your line is always busy.”
“Yes,” I replied, “I keep it off the hook.”
He nodded as if no further explanations were required.
“So tell me again, what did I buy and how much did I pay?”
“You made a five thousand dollar deposit on the Ryder mansion and you have thirty days to pay the balance.”
“Which is?”
“... Twenty-five grand.”
“I bought a mansion for thirty thousand?” I asked.
He nodded again. “It’s a real bargain.”
As far as I could tell, I was not out much and $30,000 for rural real estate was cheap, especially in an abandoned ruin in a remote county. I plucked another tissue from the pack, not because I needed it, but because I was feeling anxious.
“So who’s holding the stakes now?” I said, worried.
“Banks, the county and the estate’s executor; I suspect.”
“And if my bank doesn’t clear it, or recognize the signature?”
“If they don’t honor it,” he said, “you will have some explaining to do.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I owed Virgil an explanation, even though I could not account for the draft he received, unless Myra was involved.
“I’m sure there is a good reason for my inability to remember,” I said. “Perhaps it will come later.”
He gave his head an anxious nod. I resisted a strong compulsion to write a check for the balance, but reason kept intruding. I had never seen the house, nor did I know the land's worth or the condition it was in. For all I knew, it could have been sinking into a swamp for the past 100 years and only stones from the chimney were still standing.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How can the house you described sell so cheap?”
I was cynical enough to question the value of a bargain and wise enough to know I could not tell the difference. I could imagine a week from now suffering the throes and pangs of “buyer’s remorse.”
“It’s haunted,” he said, without the slightest attempt to conceal his smiling face.
After years of standing knee-deep in killing fields and gagging on the odor of decomposing flesh, I never encountered a ghost. Never in ten years of photographing temples, battlefields, death camps or graveyards -- where bones and skulls were stacked like kindling -- had I experienced a wisp of a spirit. I have met however, people who were not themselves; people who seemed to be playing host to some parasitic, mind-altering consciousness. I could never believe it was a spirit or ghost, but maybe they could.
“Haunted?” I repeated, surprised. I thought I had a leg up when it came to discussing the shadows of life and death. “Are you serious? You mean there are still people who believe in ghosts?”
If only for an opportunity to test my convictions and prove the contrary, I was secretly delighted by that remote
possibility. Everyone knows doubters are more desperately seeking things to believe in than the most devout believers are.
“That only makes it a better buy,” I continued. “You know what the little old platitude makers say: ‘for every dirty little house there’s a dirty little housekeeper; and for every house underwater, there are ten divers; and for every haunted house…’”
“For every haunted house there is what? Mr. Case.”
“For every haunted house, there is a…skeptic like me.”
No, I did not forget how to deal with superstitions. I had felt useful roaming through those death camps and graveyards, as if I were performing some essential service, not for the living, but for those who had suffered such meaningless deaths.
The dead, I firmly believed, had abandoned their egocentric husks and evolved to a more enlightened form. They no longer cared about a transient existence in a disease-ridden carcass, and they certainly were not out to torment the living with tawdry tricks.
I was smiling and could not conceal it. Virgil, however, was not smiling. In fact there was something resolutely grim hardening the line of his jaw and the pupils of his eyes.
“I think you’re underestimating this ghost, Mr. Case. Whoever or whatever it is, it is dangerous.”
I found that difficult to believe. The dead appeared content with their lot. Morticians never received complaints. Dangerous was a condition manifested by many kinds of people, but not dead ones.
“Let me tell you why a ghost is out of the question,” I said. “Have you ever heard of the mathematical theory of ignorance, or the law of extrema, or the law of entropy, which tend toward minimalizing energy; it also explains the death of organisms and even stars.
“Many people would like to believe that ghosts leave their non-physical realm to appear in our physical realm. If ghosts interact with our material environment by becoming visible or causing objects to move, they must be at least partially composed of matter. It is a fact that only matter produces the radiation, gravity and mechanical forces that affect other matter. Therefore, by disappearing from the spiritual domain and re-appearing in ours, they violate the conservation of matter and energy in both worlds.
“This, however, cannot occur in our world. The dead cannot come back to life for the same reason we cannot make an engine that uses water for fuel. Water is literally the residue or waste matter of hydrogen and oxygen.”
Virgil did not appear impressed with my interpretation based ever so loosely on my limited knowledge of quantum mechanics. He gave my words a thought and replied, “You can run a car on steam, that’s the same as water.”
I stood abruptly and did not try to conceal my impatience. “I don’t care about dead people or steam engines,” I said. “All I want to do is see the property.”
“I’ll show you,” he replied, “but I won’t go beyond the gate. I’ll show it from the road.”
I could not resist a smirk, but something warned me not to take his concern too lightly. I kept waiting for him to admit it was all an old Appalachian joke local realtors indulged in to amuse clients, but his expression never wavered.
“I’ve heard stories about haunted houses, but never seen one people were afraid to enter,” I said.
“No one has been inside the Ryder house in years,” he replied, “not since Elinore died, and no one is really quite sure when that occurred.”
“Elinore,” I repeated. I had heard the name mentioned, but I could not remember the circumstances.
“Yes, Elinore: the previous owner. Her father built the house; the family goes back a long time in this county.”
“What do you mean; no one knows when she died?” I asked, wishing I had not.
“She’s been buried a long time, for nearly fifteen years,” Virgil said. “Some say she died before that, but kept on going … and no one knows how.”
“You mean on a life-support system?”
“Not exactly,” Virgil said. “Some people think it was magic, or potions, but no one has been able to explain.”
“Explain what?” I asked impatiently.
“Well, her eyes for one. They were sewn shut when she was a young woman. No one knows why, since she was nearly blind. She also had very strange companions. Know what I mean?”
“No, I don’t. There must have been dozens of people who knew her, talked to her, knew why her eyes were…sewn shut? You’re a realtor; you must have talked to her at one time or another.”
He shrugged. His lower jaw, I observed, protruded a little too much for nature’s intended purpose, which made me feel uneasy.
“Something happened when she was young,” he said, “and she was never the same again. It occurred before my time, but when the old-timers around here get to talking about the Ryders, someone always says, ‘it wasn’t Ellie living in that house for 70 years; it was something else’.”
I enjoyed the company of those who create myths from exaggerations, but I could not sit still and listen to meaningless innuendo.
“Let’s save the local legends and gossip for later. Tell me about the man who built the house.”
Virgil sat on the desk and crossed his arms. I eased into the swivel chair and turned to face him.
“Samuel Ryder once owned half the land and most of the coal, oil and gas in this county,” he said. “The Democrats wanted to run him against McKinley for president in 1897, but William Jennings Bryan talked them out of it. They said Samuel could have the vice president’s job, but when the smoke cleared in the back room, Arthur Sewell was Bryan’s running mate. Ryder was pretty bitter about the whole thing, so I’m told, but it didn’t stop him from gaining control of the mining and railroad interests in this state.”
Raised in the nation’s capital by lifelong bureaucrats, I had acquired a bad taste at a very early age for politics and those whom it attracted. I learned the sole function of government was the consolidation of power, the preservation of obscene wealth, and the perpetuation of humane myths.
I chose instead the occupation of gadfly, much to the dismay of my guardians. They blame it on a story that I was a throwaway baby found in a Dempsey Dumpster and there is no telling what other influences are at work in my genes.
“Do you know why and when he built the house?”
Virgil stared as if my questions were bordering on impertinence. He seemed to be struggling with more than a concern for the commission his efforts on my behalf would earn him.
“He built the mansion on an old Indian mound, like the one in Charleston, or Adams County Ohio, which is the most famous; it is called the Serpent Mound. This one however is bigger, and it may have been something special, like a community center, or a communal grave. Mounds are pre-Columbian, so they were old when Columbus got here. Samuel did not know he was building on a mound, until the builders started unearthing graveyard artifacts.
The house also straddles the seam of coal the old Elanville mine worked,” he said.
“A small winding stream circles the house like a snake. I don’t know how it got its name, but for as long as I can remember, it’s been called Scary Creek.”
“Scary Creek?” I repeated with a grin. I am often amused when our distant forbearers begin memorializing illicit events.
“The name may have something to do with the Civil War and the discovery of several ancient bodies found in the creek.”
“Bodies?” Yes, I decided, that would have been illicit.
Virgil brightened up and his eyes got misty, inspired no doubt by the look of confusion on my face.
“That area was the site of a fierce Civil War battle. Many soldiers died and ended up in mass graves. Occasionally, when we have a heavy rain, bones and fragments wind up in the creek. People occasionally find complete skeletons. There have also been reports of entire skeletons floating in the creek.”
“Any bit of meaningful information ever result from an examination of those bodies?” I asked, a note of whimsy entering my voice.
He hesitated and wiped
his nose before proceeding. “From local reports and histories, the kind people revise in the telling, some of the bodies had no eyes.”
“No eyes?” I sensed a pattern evolving.
“In fact, if memory serves, even though they weren’t into delving too deeply into autopsies in those days, some of the bodies had no brains.”
“No eyes or brains?”
Virgil nodded and covered his chin and the corners of his mouth. I took a deep breath and let my gaze fall on prints of old steam locomotives, rustic scenes and wildlife hanging on the walls. My gaze wandered around the room deliberating with the real: office furniture and equipment, photos of white-hooded men wearing sheets and gathering around a flaming cross, and someone’s bucolic children.
“Is the Klan still holding court around here?” I asked.
“Worse than that,” Virgil replied. “They’ve all converted and become Bible toting Republicans. This is the last Democratic stronghold in a Republican state.”
I decided to chew on that gristle later. The kids in the old daguerreotypes were thin, gnarly toothed and chinless. They looked as if they harbored many incestors. Genes could fool you, take a turn for the worse and pick up a latent message knocking around in the DNA for the past 200,000 years. It could make one’s babies look like missing links.
I remember a friend of Myra giving birth prematurely to a dead fetus that looked like a scalded chicken. It was frightening. I was still mulling however over the dates and period.
“Tell me more about the house,” I said, trying to ignore the photos of the waifs.
Virgil rubbed his mouth with one hand to conceal a grin, or so I thought, before continuing.
“A branch line from the railroad once ran to the mine and the side of the house. Ryder had a private car to take him where he wanted to go. The mine shut down in the early 30s or 40s and the C&O tore up what remained of the tracks.
