by Ronald Kelly
Edwin jumped a couple of Jasper’s checkers and gathered them up with a chuckle. “Better concentrate on your game, buddy,” he said.
“Then you’d best keep your trap shut about my daughter,” grumbled Jasper. “You know she’s a pretty touchy subject with me.”
“Sorry,” said Edwin. “Didn’t mean to ruin your sunny disposition.”
Jasper nodded and took a drink of his Sun Drop. The soda pop nearly slipped through his hand, the bottle was so sweaty. In the darkness past the store’s screen door came the singing of crickets and the winking lights of fireflies.
“So, are you anxious to see the boy again?” asked Edwin.
“Sure I am,” said Jasper. “I’ve been waiting for a chance like this for a long time.” The elderly man studied the checkerboard, then made another move. “But, to tell the truth, it sort of scares me a bit.”
“How come?”
“I reckon ‘cause we’re more like total strangers than grandfather and grandson,” said Jasper grimly. “I’ve never been around him more’n a couple hours at a time and, even then, he wouldn’t have much to do with me. It’s different with Rusty. He lives less than a mile from the farm and he’s grown up knowing me; staying all night at the house and helping out with the chores when his grandma was ailing. We’re closer than two peas in a pod.”
“Well, maybe you’ll be the same way with Keith after this visit,” suggested Edwin. “I mean, he’ll be staying with you for an entire month and that’s enough time to do almost anything.”
“Except maybe the impossible,” said Jasper. “What if he resents being sent down here for the summer? From the way Felicia talked, the boy didn’t have a clue about what they had in mind. What if he ends up hating me for ruining his summer vacation?”
Edwin shrugged. “That could happen, especially if he’s as much of a spoiled brat as I figure Felicia and that gold-plated husband of hers has raised him to be. Just do what you can and hope for the best. If it doesn’t work out, then at least you tried.”
“I aim to do just that,” Jasper told him. “Give it my best shot.”
The elderly storekeeper made a move that took three of his opponent’s checkers at one time. “Well, I’ll be honest, if you don’t try any harder than you have on this here checker game, then ain’t gonna do no good a’tall. Now set your mind back on your playing and crown my checker there.”
Jasper picked up the Sun Drop bottle. “I’ll crown you,” he told his friend. “If you don’t stop sidetracking me with talk of my family problems, I’ll wallop a goose egg on your noggin with this cold drink bottle.”
Edwin mustered his most wounded frown. “Last time I try to give you any friendly advice, Jasper McLeod. From now on, I’ll just keep my mouth shut.”
“Lordy Mercy, that’ll be the day!” said Jasper. Both men laughed, then resumed their checker-playing.
By the time they finished up at ten o’clock that night, they had played four games; all of them won by Edwin Hill. But Jasper didn’t mind much. His thoughts were occupied with more important things.
Jasper’s wife, Gladys, had died of cancer more than two years ago, and he still grieved for her as strongly as he had the day she had passed away. He knew that wasn’t normal. A man had to face up to the reality of death and go on with life, but he’d had trouble doing that. He reckoned it had to do with the fact that had been married to Gladys for nearly sixty years, which was no small piece of time in his opinion. He had grown accustomed to the sound of her voice, the way she had smelled of cinnamon and Ivory soap, and how the mattress of their bed felt with her weight on it. All those things were gone now and it was like she had taken a big slice of him away with her.
He dreaded going home to that empty farmhouse, the same as he had since the evening he had returned home after Gladys’s funeral. The house was too empty. It lacked the happiness and love that his wife had blessed it with over the years. It was just a dismal shell of wood and tar shingles, completely devoid of soul.
Jasper hoped that Keith’s visit might alter that, if only in some small way. The elderly farmer had been alone since his wife had died. If his hopes panned out and he and his grandson forged some sort of bond, even one of mere friendship, then maybe he would feel as if he had gotten back some of the family he had lost during the past few years.
CHAPTER THREE
That night, Jasper McLeod had a strange dream. A dream that echoed of another time; a time similar to that of his own youth, yet one that was beyond his childhood recollections.
The darkness of night pressed against the windowpanes of a rural farmhouse. An autumn wind blustered outside, howling like a mourner in torment. Then, abruptly, the front door opened and a rawboned man stepped inside. His face was long and grim, and his work-hardened hands were balled into angry fists.
“How is she?” asked the farmer, removing his hat.
His wife simply sat there next to a wooden cradle, quietly shaking her head.
“I think she’s dead, Pa,” said a young boy beside her.
The farmer closed the door behind him, then crossed the room slowly. When he reached the cradle, he stared at the three-month-old child. The baby was dead, that was for certain. Her face was swollen and blue, as if her windpipe had closed shut and she had been unable to draw breath. Her eyes – sky blue like his own – stared blindly up at him.
“Lord have mercy on this child,” he whispered. With a trembling hand, he reached down and closed her tiny eyelids with the tips of his fingers.
Silence filled the room. Death had come, through treachery and ignorance, and there was nothing anyone could really say or do.
“Damn him!” cursed the farmer. His hands clutched the wooden side of the cradle until the muscles bunched beneath the skin and the knuckles grew bone-white from the strain. “Damn him with his jokes and his conjuring and his nigger-faced banjo-picking!” He stared at his daughter, lying still and cold beneath hand-sewn blankets, but he did not cry. He would cry later, at the burial.
“Was it him, Pa?” asked the boy. “That fella in the black coat and the stovepipe hat?”
“It was him,” said the farmer. “He suckered us. Suckered us all with his lies and fancy talking.”
The boy thought of the bearded man and his medicine show. It had seemed like innocent fun at first. He’d reeled off some side-splitting jokes, pulled rabbits and doves from his top hat, and played “My Old Kentucky Home” and “Camptown Races” on the catgut banjo, his face painted coal black with big white lips. Even the selling part had seemed interesting, holding up his wares and preaching on their miraculous virtues. But, in hindsight, the boy also remembered the one time he had seen the man before he had come to town. When a mission of mercy into the dark forest of the South Woods had turned into something evil and deadly.
“Are you sure he was responsible?” asked the woman, speaking for the first time in an hour.
“Damn sure,” said her husband. “The sheriff checked it out. He was the same one who killed five young’uns over in Bedloe County year before last.”
“How many have died?” she asked softly.
“Here in Harmony?” Anger blazed in the farmer’s eyes. “Twelve so far, counting our own. Seven young’uns and five adults.”
“Lord Jesus help us!” cried the woman. She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.
The farmer stared at his daughter for a long moment, then covered her with the blanket. “The Lord will take ‘em unto heaven, but it’s up to us to set things straight here on earth.”
His wife looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. “What’re you gonna do?”
The farmer said nothing at first. Then he walked to the hearth and took down a rifle from over the mantle. It was an old Winchester lever-action. “I’m going after him, that’s what,” he said. “Gonna make sure he doesn’t have the chance to do the devil’s dealings again.”
“The Bible tells us that only God has the right to judge a man,” she reminded him.
“It also says thou shalt not kill,” he replied, jacking a .44-40 cartridge into the breech. “And this son of a bitch has done his fair share of it in the last few years. It’s only fitting that we put and end to it.”
“I suppose so,” said the woman, though her voice held uncertainty.
As his parents discussed the matter, the boy walked to the table and stared at the bottle that stood there, uncorked. It was tall and skinny, made of cloudy glass and sporting a colorful label with elegant lettering. It wasn’t the sight of it that drew him, but the smell that drifted from the bottle’s open mouth. It was intoxicatingly sweet, like a combination of molasses, peppermint, and soda pop. But there was something else there as well. A mixture of dark, forbidden scents. The earthy odor of graveyard earth and the sharp muskiness of snake hide.
“Stay away from that, son,” said his father. “It’s poison.”
The boy stepped away from the table and looked the man in the eyes. “Can I come with you, Pa?” he asked. His heart ached over the death of his baby sister, but his mind boiled with rage.
The farmer stared at him for a long moment, then nodded.
“No!” cried his mother. “He’s too young. He’s only five!”
“Old enough to see evil stricken down,” declared the farmer. “Fetch your coat, son.”
The boy did as he was told. He pulled on his woolen coat, as his father kissed his mother and then walked toward the door. Soon, they were outside, standing in the moonlight. The boy was surprised to find a dozen other men on horses, waiting for them. They held torches and guns in their hands, and their faces were tight with fury.
The farmer mounted his own dapple gray mare, then held his hand down. “Come along, boy. Time’s a-wasting.”
The five-year-old took his father’s strong hand and was lifted onto the rump of the mare, just behind the saddle. He held onto his papa’s coattail as the horse was spurred forward. It wasn’t long before they were traveling at a gallop. The others followed closely.
The boy turned his head and peered behind him. In the darkness, he could see the lighted window of the farmhouse. The silhouette of his grieving mother stood against the pale glow of lamplight. He recalled how she had wailed at the moment of his sister’s dying gasp, how she had fallen to her knees and torn at her hair. He kept the image fresh in his young mind as he hung on tightly to his father and let the horse carry him swiftly into the black forest.
CHAPTER FOUR
Allison Walsh set the pump nozzle back in its cradle, then turned to her Ford Taurus and screwed the gas cap back into place. She shut the little door on the left rear fender, then walked toward the bright green and yellow structure of the BP station.
It was two-thirty in the morning and the place was empty, except for the clerk on duty. She was sitting on a stool behind the counter, drinking a cherry Icee and thumbing through a copy of Soap Opera Digest.
Allison took a short walk through the narrow aisles of the convenience store, picking up a bag of pretzels and a soft drink. When she reached the counter, the woman set her magazine aside. “That gonna be all for you?”
“I got twenty-five dollars worth on pump number four,” she said, yawning and running a hand through her thick brown hair. “Oh, and a pack of Merit 100’s.”
“Menthol?”
“No, regular.”
The cashier nodded, shucked a pack of cigarettes from a rack overhead, and laid them on the counter. She rang up the purchase and took Allison’s money. “Which way are you heading?” she asked, handing the woman her change.
“Back to St. Louis,” replied Allison. She uncapped the drink and took a long swallow. “Just spent a glorious week in Fort Lauderdale. Nothing but sun, surf, and studmuffins in skimpy bikini trunks. Pure paradise.”
The cashier looked a little envious. “Should’ve known by the tan,” she said, then went back to her reading.
Allison picked up her pretzels and smokes and started for the door. She felt a hundred percent better than she had a week ago, that was for sure. She had been totally stressed out, having taken over the position of feature editor at the newspaper she had been employed at for the past fifteen years. He climb to the top had been a long and tedious one, but it had been worth it. Sure, it was full of headaches, too much overtime, and little chance for a social life, but she was making nearly twice the money she had been making this time last year. And the stress wasn’t anything that a week in sunny Florida couldn’t alleviate… at least temporarily.
She was walking back to her car, when a voice came from behind her. “Ma’am?”
It startled her. She stopped dead in her tracks and stood there, clutching the little canister of pepper spray she kept on her keychain. She snaked a manicured nail beneath the plastic guard and disengaged it. Then she slowly turned around.
A man stood against the wall of the station, next to the ice machine. He was tall and dark-haired, wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, and a black Grateful Dead t-shirt. Next to his feet was a plastic trash bag, apparently stuffed with his belongings.
“Yes?” she asked cautiously.
“Well, I know you’ll probably say no,” said the man, stepping away from the wall. “But you wouldn’t consider giving me a ride, would you?”
“No,” said Allison firmly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t pick up hitchhikers.”
“And that’s smart, too,” said the man. “A pretty lady like you can’t be too careful out on the road by yourself. But I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an absolute emergency.”
As he stepped out into the bright glow of the florescent lights, Allison saw something gleam above the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. It was gold pin in the shape of a cross. Allison had seen them before in religious bookstores in some of the malls back in St. Louis.
She was on the verge of saying “I’m sorry” and walking off. But something about the cross pin stopped her. It took some of the threat away from the lanky, long-haired fellow with the scrubby mustache and goatee. She relaxed her grip on the pepper spray a little.
“Emergency?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah,” said the man. “I’ve been working a construction job here in Marietta and my folks up in Chattanooga called and told me that my father’s in real bad shape. He’s had a stroke and they ain’t sure he’s gonna make it. That’s why I’m out here in the dead of night, trying to get a ride up there.”
“Why don’t you drive yourself?” she asked.
The man looked a little embarrassed. “Ain’t got no car, ma’am.”
Allison shook her head. “I wish I could help you, but – “
“Please,” he said, his eyes pleading. “You’re the third person I’ve tried this morning. I really do need to get to Chattanooga. My daddy, he’s a good man, a Baptist preacher. I haven’t been the son I should’ve and I’d really like to get there and make my peace with him before he gets much worse. I’d sure hate to lose that last chance, if you know what I mean.”
Allison thought about it for a second. Yes, she did know how it felt to be estranged from a parent and miss the opportunity to reconcile with them. Her own father had died unexpectedly eight years ago and she regretted never having the chance to tell him that she loved him and was sorry for all the bad feelings they had held toward each other for so many pointless years.
She stood there for a long moment, debating on what she should do.
“I’ll be glad to pay for the gas up there,” he offered.
The gesture seemed to make her decision for her. “Okay, but only to Chattanooga. No further.”
Relief flooded the man’s face and he smiled. “God bless you, ma’am.”
A few minutes later, she was pulling off the exit and back onto the long, dark stretch of Interstate 75 again. Allison had chosen to drive at night, intending to breeze through Atlanta when there was no traffic to contend with. She had driven the city during the rush hour before and it wasn’t an experience she wished to endure twice in a lifetime.
“What’s your name?” she asked. They had been on the road ten minutes and her passenger had done nothing but sit silently next to her, staring absently through the windshield.
He turned his head and grinned good-naturedly. “Uh, Timothy,” he said. “Timothy Jackson, ma’am. But most folks just call me Slash.”
What an odd nickname, she thought. Allison took the hand that he extended toward her. His palm was hard and thick with calluses. “My name is Allison Walsh,” she said. “I’d prefer you call me that, instead of ‘ma’am’. I know it’s said out of politeness, but it makes me feel like my grandmother.”
Jackson laughed. “I get your drift… Allison.”
They drove a few more miles in silence, before the man spoke again. “Mind if I smoke?”
“No,” replied Allison. “I’m ready for one myself.” She reached up to the top of the dashboard and found the pack of Merits she had laid there.
Jackson bent down to open the trash bag that sat between his feet, apparently to get his own smokes. He was rummaging through the contents, when something dropped out of the breast pocket of his shirt. When he picked it up, Allison caught a glimpse of the object in the pale glow of the dashboard light. It was a small rectangle of smooth, gray stone.
“Oops,” said Jackson with a mischievous grin. “You wasn’t supposed to see that.” He stuck the stone back in his pocket, then shook an unfiltered Camel out of its pack.
A red flag went up in Allison’s mind. What did he mean by that? I wasn’t supposed to see it? She didn’t even know what the object was.
