by Brian Hodge
Some lost part of his soul knew no one would think to look under a tree that’s been undisturbed since the nineteenth century and he moaned, his small feet swinging from the rotting branch as if moved by a ghostly breeze.
Scarecrows Scare Demons Don’t They?
by Weston Ochse
Edwin had mixed feelings about being home. It had been twenty years, and instead of returning as the conquering hero he’d bragged about so long ago, he’d returned penniless, homeless and dismarried. He liked to call it that because he’d been married several times, but for many reasons, most involving his eternal love affair with alcohol, they’d never panned out. Like being disenfranchised, dismissed and diseased, he was just dismarried. To set the record straight, he wasn’t exactly penniless, either. After all, he did have his Army retirement, and half pay for doing nothing the rest of his life wasn’t too bad a deal.
His main concern, however, was a place to live, and that’s what had sent him out of town on this old two-lane road. The drive brought back memories. Some good ones— remembrances of hunting, fishing and the frolics of youth. And some bad ones—- demons that possessed the soul until one’s only friend was oneself.
For the hundredth time this week, he wondered what had drawn him back.
Like all the roads up on the mountain, this one wound along property lines, creating a dangerous meandering path through dense forest, blind corners and switchbacks. His daddy had been a moonshine runner when he was young, and used to tell young Edwin stories about taking these roads at a hundred miles an hour in the old Chevy as Smokies tried in vain to keep up. Even so, Edwin would never be his daddy and he took it slow and careful.
There was a break in the forest up ahead as it gave way to a split rail fence, old and gray with kudzu wrapped around as if it was what kept it from falling. Edwin slowed the pickup as he approached the mailbox and read the cramped painted words, faded and flaking after years of neglect. Jonston. This was the place.
He examined the house, once a proud two story, now in disrepair with several differing shades of paint and tar lathered on to repair cracks and sprung seams. He could just see the silken tips of some healthy looking corn in the back yard, probably twenty acres planted with waist-high tobacco. Edwin didn’t see a silo for the corn or a barn to dry the tobacco, so he supposed the old man must be either leasing the land or selling the raw product. Not as much money to be had, but still, it provided some income. Edwin figured the land had been in the old man’s family since they’d originally sharecropped and other than taxes and electricity, there shouldn’t be too many bills.
He’d met the old man at the Legion Hall last week when all the veterans and townsfolk had gotten together and celebrated Edwin’s return. Only in a small town would they have a party for someone they hadn’t seen in twenty years. It wasn’t Edwin they liked anyway, it was his service record and the uniform they loved. Still, the food was free and the drink was plentiful. Then the old man had approached him and offered free room and board and three hundred dollars a month if he’d sign on as a live-in caretaker. Edwin pulled in and up the dirt drive thinking this might just be the opportunity he needed.
Old Man Jonston sat on the porch, a pitcher of iced tea breathing on the table next to him. Edwin prayed that it was whiskey, but he knew that it was only his preference. As he pulled up, the old man walked to the top of the stairs and waved. Edwin waved back and stopped behind the old man’s truck— same make and model as his own, but thirty years older.
Edwin hopped out and moved up the stairs, noting how they creaked and already thinking about ways to fix them.
“Welcome, Mr. Lavern. Have any trouble finding the place?”
Old Man Jonston wore black work boots and faded denim dungarees over a white t-shirt. Edwin held out his hand and smiled.
“No, sir. Everything’s coming back to me, and your directions were dead on.”
“I bet,” said Old Man Jonston. “Here, let’s sit a spell and you can tell me about your world travels and about old Saddam.” With a liver-spotted hand he gestured toward several chairs on the other side of the round table.
Edwin moved over and went to sit down.
“NO! Stop. Not that one, that one,” indicated the suddenly irate old man.
Edwin was caught in mid-sit and stood up slowly and sat in the chair indicated. This one was old and rickety and he discovered right away that you had to sit perfectly straight and still or it threatened to break. He glanced longingly at the chair he’d almost sat in and envied its sturdy lines and well-used cushion that still held the indentations of a million sits.
The old man sat across from him in an equally comfortable-looking chair and laid his hands face up.
“Sorry about that, Mr. Lavern. That was Henrietta’s chair, may she rest in peace. That chair is reserved for her, you know.”
Edwin raised an eyebrow, then smiled. The old man was certainly getting along in years, maybe even a little senile. Edwin waited as Jonston lit a cigarette, noting the old ceramic mixing bowl that was being used as an ashtray and the hundred or so butts that almost filled it.
“It’s okay, Sir. And please, call me Edwin. I’ve never been called Mr. Lavern and it sounds funny.”
“That’s right! You went in the Army when you was eighteen. Probably never heard anything more than Private and Sergeant in your life.” The old man’s cigarette was perched in the corner of his mouth. He reached over and poured a tall glass of tea and slid it in front of Edwin. “And stop calling me Sir. I bet you had enough of that to last a lifetime, Huh? Call me Jonston. Everyone else does, anyway.”
“Too true. Too true. Alright, then... just Jonston,” he said taking a sip of the tall glass, wishing it was whiskey. He’d a flask in his pocket and as soon as the old man turned his back for more than a moment, he was going to spike it proper. “Mighty good tea.”
Jonston waved his hand, brushing aside the nicety. “It’s my Henrietta’s favorite. So you’re interested in hiring on here, are you?”
“Well, I don’t have any firm plans, but yes. It does seem like a good opportunity. I’d like some more details, of course.”
“What’s that?” asked the old man leaning forward addressing the empty chair that was Henrietta’s. Jonston nodded several times, “Of course I’ll get around to it, My Dear. Just let me do it in my own way.”
“Uh, Jonston? Are you okay, Sir?” asked Edwin, wondering if the old man was hallucinating.
Jonston glanced at him irritably, then smiled and sat back. “Sorry about that. I’m just a crazy old man, you know. A little crazy and almost harmless.”
Edwin laughed nervously and took a deep drought of the tea. Yeah, he thought, drunk crazy.
“You joined the Army in 1973. Isn’t that about right?”
“Uh, yes. I mean, I finished a twenty-year tour.”
“You know that’s the same year my wife died.”
Edwin sat back and observed the old man with compassion. Poor Jonston had never really let go, probably talked to his dead wife all the time—keeping him company in his old age.
“In fact, she told me she’d seen you before you joined up. She always said how handsome you looked in your dress greens.”
“Thank you, Sir,” replied Edwin. The only time he’d worn them was the day before he’d left and that day had been nothing but a bad day. “I mean, I didn’t know your wife, but thanks just the same. Of course, it was so long ago and I seem to have forgotten much.”
“Oh, I doubt you could ever forget her. What’s that, my dear?” Jonston asked the empty chair. “All right. All right. Settle down. I’ll ask him. I know you want to end this as much as I do.”
“Ask me what, Sir, I mean Jonston.” Edwin couldn’t help but think that if he had a jug, he could see who the old man was talking to.
“Here, have some more tea,” said the old man, standing and refilling the glass. “My Henrietta says there were a bunch of boys you used to hang around with. What were their names?
Let me see, there was Tom Hubbard, Bobby Burdette, Little Timmy Baugh, and Clay Archie. Ain’t that right?”
Edwin began to feel uncomfortable as a long forgotten memory started filtering through the years of practiced forgetfulness and alcohol. He shifted and the chair squealed in protest.
“I remember them. Haven’t seen them in twenty years, but yeah. We used to hang out together. What’s this have to do with the job?”
“Ah hell, boy. Give an old man a chance to reminisce. After all,” he said, staring pointedly at the empty chair, “I had to be sure, now, didn’t I.”
“Be sure of what?”
“Be sure you were one of the bastards that killed my Henrietta. That’s what.”
Edwin spat out the tea he’d been drinking as the memories of that night flew to the front of his mind, his actions, the actions of everyone, suddenly in perfect clarity. He stood quickly and took one step before his legs refused their commands. He fell heavily to the wooden porch, landing on his side, staring up into the face of the old man which was suddenly filled with an almost religious fury.
“Don’t try to move, son. Your legs won’t work proper. And as soon as my mixture kicks in, you won’t be able to even blink. It’s an old recipe my granddaddy used in the Civil War when they needed to amputate. Part laudanum, part horse tranquilizer.”
“But why?”
“You have the gall to ask why?” spat the old man as he stood hovering over Edwin. “You boys left her in that ditch, bleeding and broken. She was alive, you know? At least one of you bastards could have called an ambulance. She was alive for a whole day, lying there as ants and beetles crawled over her—feeding on her blood.”
Alive. She’d been alive?
Horrific thoughts moved sluggishly through his mind. They were so sure she’d been dead. After Clay had gone wild and hit her with the tire iron over and over and over, they were sure she’d died.
“Don’t you worry, boy. You don’t have to admit anything. Your friends all told me and Henrietta how you killed her. And we’ve had fifteen years to wait for you ever since I tracked down Tom Hubbard in Pikeville. Would you believe that they all blamed you? They said it was you that tore into her with a tire iron.”
“No. No, it... ” The words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t feel his legs or his arms or his face and his tongue was thicker than a bread and butter pickle.
“You won’t be able to talk, now, but don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to tell your side.”
Edwin watched as the world went from horizontal to vertical as the old man lifted him up and swung a limp arm around a shoulder. Jonston levered the screen door opened with his booted foot and with grunts and a few damnations, carried and drug Edwin through the house and onto the back porch. The back yard was filled with the sounds of buzzing flies and chirping crickets. The corn Edwin had noticed earlier, was thick, allowing a half-circle of grass for a back yard. The tall stalks of corn grew right up to the eaves on each corner of the house and was better than any fence for privacy.
Jonston turned and nodded to a large wicker chair, “Have a seat, my dear. This is the last one, so you best enjoy it.”
Edwin watched the empty chair and saw how the cushion pressed as if someone had just sat down.
“Now, take a look,” said the old man turning towards the back yard again. “Your friends have been waiting for you.”
Edwin, unable to move his head or avert his eyes, saw that at the apex of the half-circle of lawn, were five scarecrows. Four really, because in the center, was an empty cross of wood, about man-sized and freshly planted.
“I saved the position of honor for you, seeing as you were the one who was in charge of the killing. Yeah, they all told me all about how you planned it, so don’t go thinking I don’t know the truth.”
The old man limped down the stairs and drug his captive across the lawn to the empty cross. Beside it, sat a wooden crate filled with sundry instruments. The old man leaned down and gripped a strand of rope, then, almost falling with his burden, pushed Edwin against the wood. With one hand, he wrapped the rope around the upper post and around Edwin’s neck, securing it with a granny knot. He stood back and grinned from ear to ear.
“Now, that’ll hold you for a minute. Try and hold your breath, will you. Little Timmy over there strangled to death before I could finish and Henrietta wouldn’t let me live it down for the longest time.”
Edwin tried to look where Jonston had indicated and felt his head roll slowly, until the scarecrow to his right was in view. The anesthetic was beginning to wear off and he could just feel his legs and the strangling rope around his throat. While the old man secured his hands to the cross-posts with rope, Edwin examined the scarecrow. It wore a straw hat, a flannel shirt and even older dungarees than the old man wore. Fresh straw had been stuffed in the sleeves and under the hat almost completely covering the sun-bleached bones of a skeleton. He looked closer and within the straw of the head, he could make out a brown skull and the ants that still crawled in and out of the eye sockets.
Edwin turned his head and was confronted with the leering face of Jonston. He tried to scream, but only a rough sigh exited his still paralyzed mouth.
“They’re still feeding aren’t they. I squeeze honey into the eye sockets about once a week. Henrietta tells me it makes the boys scream. Says it itches like crazy. Funny how you can itch when you’re dead, ain’t it.”
Edwin cried in his mind. Sobbing internally as the truth finally set in.
It had been the night before he left for basic training and the boys had thrown him a going away party. Between the shine and the whiskey and the beer, they’d all been wasted driving around in Archie’s old Mercury Cougar shouting their defiance to the stars. They’d found Henrietta on the side of the road with a flat tire and stopped to help. Bobby had been the one who threw her down and ripped off her dress. At least he was the first one. They all took turns, except for Edwin. He was in the bushes puking. After Clay beat her, it was Bobby who took her car and hid it in the woods. They’d made a pact never to talk about it and until this day, Edwin had never told a soul.
“Pay attention, now, boy. This is important,” said the old man holding up a hammer and what looked like a silver ten-penny nail. “This here is made of silver and has been steeping in holy water for twenty years. Prepared special-like just for you. Why silver, do you ask?”
Edwin shook his head, he’d paid for his sin. He’d paid for it for twenty years. He remembered how he’d wanted to. How he’d seen her naked and begging and felt himself throb, rubbing himself, a drunken need to fuck, to release his seed like a demon intent on conquer.
But he hadn’t done anything. And it had cost him. Never a relationship, never a happy day. It was the bottle that had numbed him so he could make it to another day and another bottle. If he was guilty of anything, it was for doing nothing, not murder. He didn’t want to know what the nail was for. He didn’t even want to be here.
The old man ignored him and continued, “These will not only hold you up, but they will bind you. Hell will have to wait for a little while longer, because after I’m done, you’ll be here until the wood rots away and the silver turns to dust. I hear they still find old silver coins from before the time of Jesus. Damn if that ain’t a long time.”
Edwin was beginning to feel more and more of his body and he felt the impact of the hammering and the nail entering his left hand like a dull pain. The next nail was pounded through his tricep and he could feel this one even more. On the fourth, as the man hammered the nail happily through his right hand, it was as if all his feeling had returned and his scream pierced the air, sending crows flying from the corn and stilling the sounds of the thousand crickets. It was the last nail that sent his bowels gushing. His scream erupted from his soul, soaring beyond mortal hearing, making the angels flinch in their games and the demons pause in their laughter.
“Feel that, did you? Well, don’t you worry, boy. There’s only one more to go and th
en you won’t feel nothing.”
The last nail was twice as long as the others and was more like a railroad spike than a nail. Old Man Jonston placed it right over Edwin’s heart, and with a wry chuckle, hammered it home.
“Hey. Eddie, Wake up.”
“Yeah, Ed, get your ass awake. We’ve been waiting for you.”
He didn’t know how long it had been, but he woke up, his body felt numb. His mind was fuzzy. He opened his eyes slowly and noticed that night had descended. The backyard was brightly lit by two spotlights, each affixed to a corner of the house, high under the eaves.
“Eddie. Long time no see. How was the Army, man? Did you kill anybody?”
Edwin shook his head to try and rid himself of the cobwebs, but it was to no avail. He was having trouble thinking straight.
“I told them, Ed. We told them how you killed Henrietta. You know, you shouldn’t have done it.”
“I was puking in the weeds. I didn’t do anything,” he answered automatically, turning his head to the left.
“Yeah, I know,” said Clay grinning, “but they didn’t.”
It was Clay Archie, just the way he remembered him, except now wearing a hat and shirt and dungarees. Straw poked out from the seams almost hiding his ghostly pale face.
“Man. You got old.”
Edwin spun his head to his right, and where he’d seen the skeletal remains of Little Timmy earlier, was now the painfully pale features of the little man, giggling happily. He turned and looked to the porch, twenty feet away. Old Man Jonston sat beside Henrietta, his hand resting atop hers upon the table. Like his friends, she was pale, a ghost, and he could make out her satisfied smile even at this distance.
