Valley of the Scarecrow

by Gord Rollo

  Together they lashed the reverend’s arms and legs tight, really tight, using far more ropes than were probably necessary but none of them wanted to take any chances. When they were done, the village elders stood back and pulled the wooden pews off the altar. Joshua Miller hung high above them, teeth bared and head bleeding, utterly livid he’d somehow been rendered powerless.

  “This isn’t over, Angus,” Joshua said, hate oozing out with every word. “This cross won’t hold me forever!”

  “It doesn’t have to,” Angus replied, confident they’d won and God’s judgment, however extreme, had been served. “It just needs to hold you long enough for the Man in Black to come back for you…and drag you to hell where you belong! Bye, Reverend. May the Good Lord have mercy on your poor corrupted soul.”

  The elders began gathering their fallen brethren, preparing to leave.

  “You can’t just leave me like this. Kill me, damn it, but don’t you dare leave me here,” Joshua screamed, equal parts madness and desperation in his voice, but Angus Tucker had said all he intended and was leading the village elders out of the sanctuary, turning their backs on the hysterical man. “Bastards! Filthy rotten cowardly bastards! You’ll pay for this, Tucker. You hear me? You’ll all pay!”

  It took the men another hour to finish boarding the windows and doors of the church, to seal it up as tightly as they could. They took their time and did the job right, praying no one would step foot inside the desecrated building again. Through it all, Joshua Miller cursed and screamed and eventually wept from his cross in the darkness within. The thick boards helped muffle his cries, but could never completely silence him. Although it was a horrible thing to do, and completely against their Christian sensibilities, the village elders walked away from the church with their heads held high. They gathered their friends and families, packed up their belongings, and left their houses, crops, and dreams behind. By morning, the small backwoods farming community of Miller’s Grove was no more, abandoned and left to rot and crumble away like it had never existed. The only things that would remain were the boarded-up church, the fields of corn, and the dark presence overhead of the ever-circling crows.

  Always the crows…

  Cedar Rapids, Iowa

  October 2010

  SOWING THE SEEDS

  Chapter Eight

  “Holy crap!” Kelly said, honestly lost for words and not sure what else to say to her grandfather after hearing a story like that. “That can’t be true…can it?”

  Malcolm took a deep breath and let out a weary sigh before answering. Retelling his family’s darkest secret had obviously taken its toll on the old man and he needed to gather his thoughts before carrying on. “I’m afraid it is, angel. You didn’t know your great-grandfather but trust me, Angus wasn’t the kind of man who’d make up stories. My father was a good man, a man who’d dedicated his life to the Lord, and this was a terrible legacy he’d have given anything not to pass on to us but what was done was done. I was there that night, hiding in the woods and in the corn when he came home and told us all we were leaving Miller’s Grove. He’d aged about ten years in only a few hours and I watched him carry that burden of guilt for the rest of his days. What he and the elders did inside that church was killing him, slowly eating away at his sanity, as well as his faith. Whether they were right or wrong, only God can decide now, but there’s no question in my mind that his story is true. Every last word of it.”

  Kelly went and fetched her grandfather a cool glass of water. She needed a few minutes to think about what she’d heard but there’d been tears rolling down the sweet old man’s cheeks when he’d been talking about his father and Kelly wanted to give him a moment alone. “Here…drink this, Gramps. Think we’ve had enough coffee.”

  Malcolm accepted the glass and thanked her. She waited until he’d drank his fill, then took the glass back from him and set it aside. “You mentioned the Man in Black a few times. Is that the devil? He has lots of names but I’ve never heard him described like that before.”

  “I don’t really know. Was he the actual demon from the pit, or just one of his minions? It’s not for me to say, but no one should ever call evil by its real name. Just asking for trouble, evoking a blasphemous name; know what I mean? Call him anything you want but my father thought he was the destroyer of souls, and to me at least he’ll always be called the Man in Black.”

  “That’s cryptic, Gramps. Pretty hard to swallow too, to be honest. I mean, come on…a group of grown men believing the devil lived in their little backwoods cornfield? Isn’t that stretching the truth just a bit?”

  “Evil lives everywhere, sweetie. Never forget that.”

  “Wow. I didn’t even know you were a religious man. It’s kind of weird hearing you talk like this.”

  “You don’t have to go to church every Sunday to believe what you believe. In fact, I’ve never been inside a church since I left the Grove. Too many bad memories, I guess. That’s why your mother and father had an outdoor wedding. I wouldn’t have gone otherwise. Call me a silly old man if you want, but I can’t change the way I think. If you’d have seen what I saw, you’d understand.”

  “I do understand, Gramps…least I think I do and I really appreciate you telling me about all this. I know it wasn’t easy for you. Do you think your father and the other elders did the right thing? I mean, they killed a preacher, right? That’s heavy shit.”

  “I don’t know. It’s a question that haunted my father to the day he died. He never came up with an answer and I doubt you or I ever will either. Only God can answer it, I suppose. I shouldn’t have told you. You’ll think all your ancestors were lunatics.”

  “No I don’t, big guy. I love ya, and I’m glad you told me. I’ve always wondered what happened there and why no one ever wanted to talk about it. Now I know. Here…have another drink of your water. Be right back.”

  Kelly got up to go rinse their coffee cups, leaving her grandfather slumped at the table, head bowed and looking like his thoughts were somewhere far, far away. She wondered how much of that fairy tale her grandfather actually believed. He’d only been a boy at the time and surely whatever had happened back in his village had morphed into something far worse than what really took place. Like any good story, the truth gets lost in time and the storyteller starts to add in things to make the tale more sensational to the listener. No doubt, Kelly’s ancestor must have had a hand in overthrowing their town leader, but whatever his crimes were she had serious doubts Joshua Miller had been evil incarnate and a close personal friend of the devil’s. It was an awful story and an incredible part of her family history, but on top of all the madness, mayhem, and horrible violence, Kelly couldn’t stop thinking about the one other thing Malcolm had offhandedly mentioned even before he’d begun his story. Something that struck a chord with her more than the vigilante justice and satanic ghost story had.

  …the council might have to find Joshua’s hidden gold to refurbish the theater.

  “Joshua’s gold?” Kelly whispered, testing the words on her tongue. Was the crazy old preacher rich? Could that much of the story be true? Had Joshua Miller buried the gold in his church, or maybe hidden it somewhere else in the Grove? Better yet, had anyone found it or was it still out there somewhere in the woods?

  These questions and many more kept popping into Kelly’s head. She could use that cash to help start up the restaurant she’d been dreaming of, but she was also thinking about Dan and Rich’s floundering landscaping business and how maybe there was a way to pay off their debts and keep them in business after all. Even if she and Dan never got back together as a couple, she still cared about both of them and would be thrilled to be the one who came up with the plan that might salvage their company. Crazy as her plan might be. Hell, maybe they could even donate some of the gold to help rebuild the Paramount Theatre like her grandfather wanted. That would make him incredibly happy, which was reason enough in itself. The possibilities were endless. If the gold actually existed, that wa
s. And if they could find it. After all, all she had to go on were the stories of an old man whose memories probably couldn’t be trusted, but Malcolm had never lied to her before so maybe there was something to this after all.

  She put the clean cups in the cupboard and headed back to the table. In the dining room, Malcolm was still trapped in the past, staring out the front window but probably not seeing anything in the here and now. It was sad to see him looking so small and frail, looking guilty of a crime that wasn’t his, lost in memories that were likely closer to fiction than anything resembling the truth. This was definitely a side of her grandfather Kelly wasn’t used to seeing; a secret side of him that had obviously been smoldering beneath the surface for years. She needed to shake him out of his reverie and put a smile back on his face.

  “Just had an idea, Gramps. A good one too. Wouldn’t it be cool if we found that gold you mentioned earlier? We could get that theater all fixed up the way you remember it and I could finally open up my restaurant. You could come have supper there every—”

  “Don’t you dare, Kelly Ann Tucker!” Malcolm shouted, jumping to his feet and pointing a trembling finger in her startled face. “Don’t even let that terrible thought inside your head, you hear?”

  In all the twenty-two years of her life, this was the first time Kelly could remember her grandfather ever raising his voice at her and for a moment it startled her into silence, completely taken by surprise. If she’d hoped to settle the old man down and cheer him up, she was doing a piss-poor job of it—she’d never seen him this upset and frazzled before. Could it be he was starting to lose his grip on sanity, finally beginning that downward spiral so many elderly men and women seem to take in the last few years of their lives? It didn’t seem likely; not her Gramps, but man he was certainly acting awfully weird.

  “Promise you won’t do it, Kelly. Promise me.”

  “Do what? I didn’t mean to—”

  “Don’t play games with me, girl. I’m serious. Nothing good will ever come of this. You can’t try to find Miller’s Grove. Not ever. Don’t go looking for that gold.”

  “But why? If that old preacher really did hide a treasure there, why shouldn’t we go look for it? Seems crazy not to. In fact, if you’re so sure of your story, I’m surprised you haven’t looked for it yourself.”

  The air seemed to deflate out of Malcolm’s balloon, his anger leaking away in a deep sigh. He sat back down on his chair, looking tired, his eyes filled with fear.

  “You don’t think I’ve thought about it? You don’t think I’ve lain awake some nights dreaming about getting my hands on that gold?”

  “Why didn’t you then? And if not you, someone else from the Grove at least. If the gold’s real, surely someone would have searched for it by now.”

  “It’s blood money, Kelly. Joshua Miller sold his soul for that stash. Sold all our souls maybe. It’s not just gold either. Paper money wasn’t worth squat back in the Depression, but things like gold, silver, diamonds, jewels, those never lose their worth. He took any and all of it. Whatever profits our bewitched crops produced, he took control of and stored it away. While the rest of the country was starving and out of work, our little community flourished. When other farmers’ crops dried up and withered to dust, our fields grew lush and green and our profits went up and up.”

  “Sounds like all the more reason to look for it.”

  “Listen. While my father was alive he forbid me to even speak of the Grove, never mind Joshua Miller or his treasure, but I remember the day he died clear as a bell. It was 1969 and I was forty-three years old. A full-grown man, but for the first time in my life I finally felt free. Angus Tucker was a good father and a good man but he was as strict as they come. I never dreamt of disobeying him, but once he was gone I couldn’t help but think some of the same things that are rattling around your head right now. I can remember standing at his grave site watching them toss shovelfuls of dirt on top of his casket, but all I was thinking about was going back to the Grove and maybe digging a few holes of my own. It was a terrible thing to be thinking at my own father’s funeral, but that’s the truth of it.”

  “Then why didn’t you ever go do it?”

  “Who said I didn’t?”

  “You looked for the gold? Wow! What happened?”

  “Nothing. I chickened out. Took me six years, but I went back to the Grove in 1975, thinking maybe I’d check out the old village in the woods. Joshua’s house was two or three times the size of the rest of our cabins so I figured I’d try there first. Seemed like as likely a place to start as any, but I never made it there. I came out of the path in the forest and as soon as I saw the cornfields I knew I couldn’t go any further.”

  “Why? What about them?”

  “They hadn’t been tended in nearly forty years at the time and they were as lush and bountiful as the day we’d left them. The corn was growing even better without us, the stalks huge and thick, nine or ten feet off the ground for as far as the eye could see. There must have been a dozen cobs on each stalk, or more, and they were bloody enormous. Totally impossible, but I saw it with my own eyes. And then I looked past the corn and saw the old church in the middle of the field, still boarded up and untouched since the night my father and the elders had nailed it shut. The roof was covered in hundreds of crows, none of them flying or making any noise at all. They just sat there, all of them looking at me. I know how crazy that sounds, but it’s the truth. Just the thought of Joshua Miller’s corpse still locked inside there scared the hell out of me and I turned around right then and there and went straight home. Thought about going back lots of times, but I never did.”

  “Well, I’m not scared of an old church or a few silly crows.”

  “It’s not the church you need to worry about. It’s the whole place. Miller’s Grove is an evil place, angel. A dead place tainted by blood and sin. As close to hell on earth as you’re ever likely to find. Joshua might be dead and gone, but the Man in Black is still there. I know he is.”

  “Oh come on, Gramps. You’re smarter than that. The devil doesn’t watch over cornfields. It’s just superstition, big guy. You’re still scared of what happened to your family as a boy and I completely understand that, but you’ve got to know what you’re saying is nonsense.”

  “Someone’s tending those crops,” Malcolm said, staring off into space again. “Or maybe I should say something…”

  Chapter Nine

  Her dashboard clock read 7:19 when Kelly pulled up to the curb at Rich and Lizzy’s place on Stadler Avenue. She’d spent the entire afternoon with her grandfather, talking to him about his memories of Miller’s Grove, his father, the Man in Black, and many other things, but basically spending the last several hours repeatedly assuring him she wasn’t going to go traipsing out into the woods trying to find Joshua’s buried treasure anytime soon. He was skeptical, but over supper she’d finally convinced him she couldn’t do it regardless if she wanted to, seeing as she had no idea where Miller’s Grove was located. It certainly wasn’t on any of the Iowa maps she’d seen over the years, and if she didn’t know which direction to even start driving in, it was unlikely she’d be getting herself in trouble with the Man in Black anytime soon.

  Back in Cedar Rapids, she had more urgent matters to worry about anyway. She was nervous as hell about having to face Dan tonight but Rich was probably right, they had to face each other again sometime, might as well get it over with. Kelly shut off the car, pocketed the keys, and stepped out onto the street.

  Rich rented the bottom floor of a beat-up saltbox-style house and the owner, a man named Jack Travis, lived upstairs. Jack was never around, which on the one hand was a great thing since it basically gave Rich and Lizzy the run of the place, but it also sucked because he was never there to fix anything so the house was crumbling to the ground around them. It needed all new windows, the roof leaked, and it was badly in need of a new coat of paint. The once olive green paint was practically worn down to bare wood, the last pat
ches of color hanging in ugly peeling strips. About the best thing that could be said about the old house was that it had a huge fenced backyard and at the very back Rich had built a circular stone fire pit way back from the noise of the street. Seeing what he did for a living, as part of his rental agreement Rich naturally looked after the lawn and over the last few years he’d turned the backyard into a private oasis. It was where Rich and Lizzy and the rest of the gang always hung out together.

  Check that: it was where they always used to hang out together.

  Noticing that Dan’s silver Toyota SR5 4×4 was parked in the driveway, Kelly sighed and walked around the house into the backyard, concentrating on nothing more that putting one foot in front of the other. If she thought too hard about what was about to happen, she’d probably turn around and run away.

  As fate would have it, Dan was the first person she ran into by the gate, exiting the back door with his hands full of beer bottles and trying to carry a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips clamped in his teeth. When he saw her, he opened his mouth to speak, but only managed to drop the chips and two of the beers trying to catch it on the way to the ground. One of the beer bottles shattered on the patio stones, while the other hit grass and was okay. Dan just stood his ground, not knowing whether to pick up the broken glass, or to greet Kelly.

  “Smooth move, ex-lax,” Rich said, coming out of the house behind his friend, but when he saw Kelly standing there at the gate, he stopped laughing and gave her a quick wave. “Hi, Kelly. Glad you could make it. Umm…here, let me take those.” Rich grabbed the unbroken beer from Dan, scooped the bag of chips off the ground, and bolted for the fire pit. Without looking back, he shouted, “Clean that shit up, okay? One of you drunks will cut yourselves later if you don’t.”

  With Rich gone, there was no one else to distract the estranged couple and they were forced to look at each other for the first time in months. “Hi, Kel,” Dan said, clearly as nervous as she was. Dropping the beer had certainly proven that much at least. “I’m just gonna grab the dustpan and broom inside. I’ll be right back.”