Cory gently shook Micah’s shoulder and pointed toward the High Choir. A lone monk stood in shadows, his face in darkness. The boys watched the phantom, whose head remained rigid as he stared down the vaulted spine of the building. The air filled with incense, the smell thick and almost choking. The holy figure slowly began to drift down the central aisle gazing forward until even with Micah and Cory; he turned facing them with piercing eyes. Micah inhaled deeply as he noticed that the specter’s head was almost severed, blackish blood squirting from a deep puncture wound cut into his neck. Cory grabbed his friend’s hand without taking his eyes off of the floating image. The monk raised a hand and pointed toward the boys, then spoke in a loud whisper, “Fatum nostrum!” With those words, the image began shifting and whirling until it formed into a fiery pinwheel, its arms dancing with blue-white flames before evaporating into nothingness.
They remained in the church for almost a quarter hour before retreating to the gardens adjacent to the cathedral. “That was Latin? What did he say?” Cory asked.
“Our destiny!” Micah answered. The words sent a shiver through his body.
“What did he mean by that? Seems an odd thing for a ghost to say. Was he talking to us or was he speaking to himself?”
“You know as much as I do.” Micah grinned at the thought of them talking casually about something that should terrify them, but they were accustomed to the frightful and bizarre, and they started jogging toward the river, but their destination was not the uncle’s flat. They felt compelled to run. Running would focus their minds and help identify the subtleties of the visitation, framing the eeriness into some kind of mental perspective. The two sprinted together around the central city for several hours, resting now and then, before returning to the flat to relax—not to sleep.
At 4:00 in the morning, Cory’s uncle Einar returned from work. The boys got up to meet him in his small efficiency kitchen. “Ah, my American family is awake and ready to make me a hot meal,” he teased. Einar was the youngest brother, and in a way reminded Micah of a young Mr. Rathbone the psychologist: caring, sensitive and protective.
“We saw a ghost,” Micah blurted out, “in the big church.
“You saw the monk then. That is the only ghost that I have ever heard of there.” He looked deeply at the boys. “So you two must be the intruders that were reported.” Einar was a policeman. “Get your passports; I have to take you in for trespassing.”
The boys smiled and so did Einar.
“We weren’t trespassing. The door was open,” Cory stated.
“That’s why it was trespassing. If you had broken in, that would have been much worse: attempted burglary maybe or felony trespass.” The young man frowned with a grin. “But I was a boy once. Don’t do it again or I will lock you up. Tell me about the monk.”
The boys told him everything. “What do you think he meant by ‘Our destiny’”? Cory asked.
“I think he meant that death is our fate and nothing more. What else could it mean?”
“The monk was very angry but even sadder.” Micah said. “My soul aches for him.”
“Yes, mine also. He died in a troubled time.” Einar for a moment looked as miserable as the monk felt. “So what are your plans for today? No more criminal activity I hope.”
“We are taking the train to Östersund. There is a student hostel near the train station, and we will spend the night and return tomorrow evening. Poppa said there was not much trouble we could get into.” Cory smiled at his dad’s words.
“Obviously Francis has never stayed overnight at a youth hostel in Östersund. You need to watch yourselves. Teenagers can be wild, so I guess you two will fit in well.” He smiled at his nephew and Micah, and then wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to them. “This is a friend that lives there. If you have any problems, give him a call. He is also a policeman. And I’ll have some things planned when you get back. I’m sure you will have some fun. Do you need some money?”
“Naw, I got a $100 and Cory has some Kroners,” Micah responded. “We won’t flash our money around. We’ll be careful.
“Your train leaves at 7:00 this morning, so we have more than enough time for breakfast. Get your packs and let’s go.”
The four hour trip to Östersund seemed to last forever. The scenery was certainly different than the Panhandle. With the trees, hills, mountains and lakes, Micah felt claustrophobic. He missed the wide open prairies. The boys had no trouble either getting their tickets or with Swedish immigration. Apparently kids traveling alone were not that uncommon, at least that’s what it seemed.
The hostel was about 2/3rds of a mile from the train station, and that was the first place they headed. Mr. Krigsman had called and their reservations were ready. There was also a note for them from someone named Axsel Petersen with his phone number. Their room was a dormitory. The matron of the hostelry said they were the only ones checked in so far.
They picked out their beds and then went to a phone booth in the hallway. Cory called Petersen’s number and spoke with him for a couple of minutes. “Axsel is Einar’s policeman friend. He is taking us for lunch. He’ll meet us downstairs in five minutes.
Micah pulled the paper Einar had given him that morning and saw Axsel Petersen’s name written in big letters. “Guess we should have looked at your uncle’s note. Jeez, it would be hard to get into trouble with everyone and their mother watching out for us.”
The boys cleaned up a little and stowed their packs in a locker. Axsel stepped into the hostel reception room at the same time the boys came down the stairs. He appeared to be the same age as Einar only taller and meatier with a full red beard. He looked like a young Santa Claus dressed in a policeman uniform.
“God eftermiddag,” Axsel spoke loudly and then repeated his greeting in English, “Good afternoon.” Einar asked me to keep an eye on you two, but I think we’ll have lunch and then you boys can do whatever you planned. You don’t look much like hoodlums.”
They walked down the street and stopped at a restaurant next to the police station. “Östersund is not too big, so unless you are going hiking or boating, there are not too many activities for boys. There is a swimming pool.”
“He wanted to come,” Cory head tilted toward Micah, “and add Sweden to his list of countries visited. We are going running along the lake, or is there a better place?”
“It is as good as any for a day trip. I have to go back to the station. If you need anything, call me. If you get into trouble, call me. It is good meeting you.” Axsel left the boys to finish their lunch. Afterward, they returned to the hostel and changed into running clothes and took off.
The run was not enjoyable, they could not get to speed because of roads and people, but they got five or six miles in nevertheless, but at a very slow pace. By the time they returned to the hostelry, it was approaching six in the evening. They discovered their empty dorm room was crowded with older boys mostly from Germany. They showered and changed and started to leave to find some supper. A boy named Cesar invited them to come with them to the pub next door. Micah studied the Germans and got no bad feelings. Cory and he were the same height and build as their German acquaintances; that is, they would pass for being much older.
They sat in the pub, and the bar maid brought them all a pint of dark beer; the boys were quiet as they downed their drink and Micah listened to the conversation in Deutsch.
“What are they saying,” Cory asked Micah.”
“Something about that lady who brought the beers, I think they want to sleep with her.” Both Micah and Cory grinned.
“What are you smiling about?” Cesar smirked as he spoke.
While the two Americans had one beer, the Germans had many. Micah felt the boy’s aggression, and he knew it was time for them to go. Both Cory and Micah stood to leave as did two of the Germans.
“I asked you a question.” Cesar spit the words out. “You think because you’re Americans you own the world.” He took a step toward Micah
.
Micah felt a change overtake him. His hands turned into fists; his heart began beating rapidly. “I always laugh at stupid pigs,” Micah spoke in German. That inflamed Cesar who took another step forward. So did Micah. The German youth raised his arm to push, but Micah smacked him squarely mid-face with a right uppercut followed by a jab to his center torso with his left hand. Cesar did not fall, but he was bent over with the air knocked out of him. Simultaneously, the other German boy went toward Cory, who swung and connected with the boy’s forehead.
Then everything was quiet. The barkeep went through the pub’s door and yelled for the police officer standing near the tavern, and Cory went to a payphone to call Axsel telling him, “I think we’re going to jail!”
And the four boys got to visit the police station and the Swedish version of the lockup, where Axsel let them sit for the night. At 9:00 the next morning, he looked in at the boys through a window. Micah, Cory and one of the German boys were asleep sitting up, and Cesar was lying down with his head resting on Micah’s lap.
“Children,” he whispered to the jail guard who opened the door. He walked into the chamber and yelled, “Get up!” and the boys jumped. “You two,” he spoke to the Germans, “Get out of here. Cory and Micah, you’re coming with me. Let’s get your stuff.”
They walked down the street in silence, entering the hostel where Axsel ordered the boys to retrieve their possessions. The three crossed the street to a restaurant. “What is Einar going to say, spending most of your time in Sweden in a jail cell? Will he be happy?” Axsel was smiling. “When he yells at you, you ask him about his stay in that same jail. That will shut him up.” The boys grinned.
They ate breakfast and made their way to the lakeshore as Axsel escorted the boys to the train station. “Please don’t get into any more trouble. You stay at this station, get on the train and go back to Norway.” He shook Cory and Micah’s hand. “Behave!”
At 5:00 that evening, they were back in Trondheim being met at the station by Einar all dressed up in his policeman uniform. He was not happy. “Fighting in a tavern; drinking; God knows what else? Shameful behavior! I haven’t told your father yet, but he will be disappointed. What will you say to your parents?”
“I heard that you stayed at the same jail we did. What did you tell your parents, and what did they do?” Cory looked impishly at his uncle, who became suddenly quiet.
“Axsel talks too much,” Einar smiled. “Okay, blackmail I see. I won’t say anything to Francis or Ellen. If I ground you, will you stay in the flat?”
The boys shook their heads yes and winked.
“That’s how it is. Can you at least promise to stay out of trouble?”
“That we can do,” Cory said. “No fighting, no drinking and no breaking and entering. We promise.”
Chapter 17: Seneca
Micah and Cory waved goodbye from the circle drive in front of the homestead. Mr. and Mrs. Krigsman drove down the dirt road heading home to Amarillo, while the boys remained behind in Seneca to spend time with Uncle Vernon and the Sherwood clan. This was a last minute thing, unplanned. Micah enjoyed his Norway visit, but not so much the supervision. After the train trip to Sweden, Einar decided it was best for him to take some time off, so Micah’s last week in Europe was spent camping and hiking—something away from town where trouble seemed to follow the two enthusiastic boys.
The Missouri farmhouse was big and still growing. The original home was built in the 1840s, and as the family grew, so did the house. Uncle Vernon’s brood lived there along with various other family members. The property was actually owned by all of the Sherwood brothers, but Vernon managed the farming operations and the house served as his headquarters. The porch circled the entire residence with the kitchen taking up the south side of the house. A large living room and dining room encompassed the east side, and a series of bathrooms and bedrooms filled the remaining portion of the downstairs. Upstairs was the dormitory.
At some point early in the Civil War, the family’s boys were assigned this room, and it has remained that way ever since. The Sherwoods were Yankee sympathizers in the part of Missouri that was staunchly Confederate. (Neosho was the Confederate Capital of Missouri, and it was only 17 miles away.) In 1861, many of the Unionists fled Southwest Missouri. But the Sherwoods and some of their kindred families remained. A few days before the Battle of Carthage, Solomon Sherwood went out to herd the cattle when he ran into a band of confederate soldiers out of Arkansas. They shot him dead, stealing the cattle. With Solomon’s death, the Sherwood boys bivouacked in the attic of the farmhouse, which had windows facing all directions. There they took turns watching and shooting at any confederate that wandered too close, standing guard day and night until the area was retaken by the Union. That’s how the attic became the boy’s dormitory.
The dorm was 25’ by 25’, a monstrous room with the staircase descending in its center. There were six full-sized beds on two walls; one wall had shelves and armoires for clothing. The fourth wall had a series of desks and worktables. Vernon’s three boys slept in the room (along with Vernon when his wife, Norma-Jean, periodically kicked him out of the bedroom). But the room was available to any of the cousins; Vernon’s boys were rarely alone.
It was early morning still, and Vernon was in the kitchen frying a slab of bacon and getting breakfast ready. That was his job, not his wife’s. Her role Micah decided was watching television and popping out babies, because that is all she ever did; but Vernon never complained. He always had a smile on his face and a joke on his lips. This morning his sons, Brian, Jerry, and Kenny, were moving horses out of the stalls and feeding the hogs. Cousins David, Danny, Ronnie and Dallas were out in the pasture cleaning out various water tanks and mending fences. The Sherwood farm probably employed, without pay, 10 or 15 cousins. Micah and Cory were assigned cleaning the horse stalls and chicken coop.
There were half a dozen coonhounds yelping and chasing squirrels as Micah and Cory walked over to the stables to begin their chores. The Missouri heat touched their skin in a moist squeeze. It felt good after the two weeks of cold summer temperatures in Trondheim. He stood at the entrance to the horse barn staring south across the fog shrouded meadow at his grandmother’s house. Uncle Ralph lived crossways from grandma, and Micah watched him ride his tractor across a field retrieving bundles of hay for winter feed. Three miles up from them was Aunt Dory’s place. Uncle Lester lived a mile in the opposite direction; Uncle Wayne was nearer to Seneca and Aunt Normie lived on the road to Racine. Uncles Frank and Benjamin made Seneca their home and drove to the farm each morning, stopping at the homestead for breakfast. Micah’s dad and Cecil were the only brothers that left the farm. They shared in its profits, but that was usually a meager amount after expenses were paid.
Micah counted 75 cousins of various degrees at the family reunion last year near Twin Bridges, and a few had been added since then. The reunion was sort of the Sherwood version of a pilgrimage, a heartfelt obligation. Not only were the Sherwoods present, but the allied families as well: the Cooks, the Morgans, the Mosers, the Huebbles and the Elliotts, all kith and kin, all migrated together from North Carolina first to Indiana and then to Newton County. Their lines had intertwined for over a century and a half. Micah loved Missouri because of this extended family, and he felt cheated for not having the cousins around him all of the time. But Cory, Dane and Tandy made up for that; they made him whole.
The breakfast bell rang, and Micah ran to the kitchen followed by his friend. Cory was overwhelmed by the size of the family, all of the cousins, aunts and uncles, and it made him feel uncomfortable. There were 15 at breakfast, and that was a modest number to have at a meal. At dinner there would be more than double that. Micah sat next to Dallas, the oldest cousin, at a table adjacent to a sassafras tree, and Cory placed his plate between him and Brian, Vernon’s youngest son.
Halfway through the meal, Uncle Vernon came and spoke to Micah. “After your work, you need to go over to mom’s. She needs a ta
lk with you.” He chatted for a while longer and then jumped into his pickup and pulled over to a loading shoot at one of the hog sties. They would have fresh pork for dinner.
The stables had 20 stalls but there were only a half dozen horses in residence. Cory and Micah rushed through the cleanup and then headed to the chicken coop to collect eggs and load fresh bedding into the nests. Cory went down one side of the coop and Micah the other. The nests were stacked two high. About the third nest down, on the top row just above head level, Cory reached in and then yelled, “Son of a bitch,” and jumped back. “There’s a fucking snake in there.”
Micah laughed, climbed up on the lower row of nests, reached in and pulled out a gigantic black snake. “You should look before you put your hand in the nests. Ratsnakes like eggs for breakfast.” Micah grinned at his friend.
“Thanks for letting me fucking know.” Cory was not happy. “Anything else you need to tell me?”
“I’m sure there is but can’t think of it at the moment.” Micah took the snake into the woods and released it.
At lunchtime, Micah and Cory headed across the meadow toward grandmother’s house, which sat on block piers; the rear of the house was a good four feet above ground while its front was less than six inches off the dirt. It was a square bungalow, and the floors had numerous black and red stripes painted on the hardwood planks. The flooring had been salvaged from the old high school gymnasium. All the uncles came together to demolish the building, haul the salvage to the farm and then build the cottage at the edge of the meadow. That’s the way the Sherwoods did things, as a family and everything for the family.
Willow Wood Road: Lavender and Sage Page 25
