Midnight Grinding

by Ronald Kelly

  Some of the men at the fire hung their heads in shame, while the others only stared at us with that same look of hard suspicion. “Please…just move on,” said the big fellow.

  Me and Mickey made the grade in silence and continued on down the tracks. “To heck with their stupid old camp,” the boy said after a while. “Didn’t wanna stay there anyhow. The whole place stank to the high heavens.”

  Thinking back, I knew he was right. There had been a rather pungent smell about that hobo camp. It was a thick, cloying odor, familiar, yet unidentifiable at the time. And, although I didn’t mention it to Mickey, I knew that the hobos’ indifferent attitude toward us hadn’t been out of pure meanness, but out of downright fear. It was almost as if they’d been expecting someone else to come visiting. Our sudden appearance had set them on edge, prompting the harsh words and unfriendliness that had let us know we were far from welcome there.

  We moved on, the full moon overhead paving our way with nocturnal light. The next freight yard was some twenty or thirty miles away with nothing but woods and thicket in between. So it was a stroke of luck that we turned a bend in the tracks and discovered our shelter for the night.

  It was an old, abandoned boxcar. The wheels had been removed for salvage and the long, wooden hull parked off to the side near a grove of spruce and pine. We waded through knee-high weeds to the dark structure. It was weathered by sun and rain. The only paint that remained was the faint logo of a long-extinct railroad company upon the side walls.

  “Well, what do you think?” I asked young Mickey.

  The freckle-faced boy wrinkled his nose and shrugged. “I reckon it’ll have to do for tonight.”

  We had some trouble pushing the door back on its tracks, but soon we stepped inside, batting cobwebs from our path. The first thing that struck us was the peculiar feeling of soft earth beneath our feet, rather than the customary hardwood boards. The rich scent of freshly-turned soil hung heavily in the boxcar, like prime farmland after a drenching downpour.

  We found us a spot in a far corner and settled there for the night. I lit a candle stub so as to cast a pale light upon our meager supper. It wasn’t much for two hungry travelers: just a little beef jerky I had stashed in my pack, along with a swallow or two of stale water from Mickey’s canteen. After we’d eaten, silence engulfed us—an awkward silence —and I felt the boy’s concerned gaze on my face. Finally I could ignore it no longer. “Why in tarnation are you gawking at me, boy?”

  Mickey lowered his eyes in embarrassment. “I don’t know, Frank…you just seem so pale and peaked lately. And you get plumb tuckered out after just a couple hours walking. How are you feeling these days? Are you sick?”

  “Don’t you go worrying your head over me, young fella. I’m doing just fine.” I lied convincingly, but the boy was observant. The truth was, I had been feeling rather poorly the last few weeks, tiring out at the least physical exertion and possessing half the appetite I normally had. I kept telling myself I was just getting old, but secretly knew it must be something more.

  Our conversation died down and we were gradually lulled to sleep by the sound of crickets and toads in the forest beyond.

  That night I had the strangest chain of dreams I’d ever had in my life.

  ***

  I dreamt that I awoke the following day to find Mickey and myself trapped inside the old boxcar. It was morning; we could tell by the warmth of the sun against the walls and the singing of birds outside.

  We started in the general direction of the sliding door, but it was pitch dark inside, sunlight finding nary a crack or crevice in the car’s sturdy boarding. We stumbled once or twice upon obstructions that hadn’t been there the night before and finally reached the door. I struggled with it, but it simply wouldn’t budge. It seemed to be fused shut. I called to Mickey to lend me a hand, but for some reason he merely laughed at me. Eventually I tired myself out and gave up.

  We returned to our bindles, again having to step and climb over things littering the floor. I lit a candle. The flickering wick revealed what we had been traipsing over in the darkness. There had to be twelve bodies lying around the earthen floor of that boxcar. The pale and bloodless bodies of a dozen corpses.

  I grew frightened and near panic, but Mickey calmed me down. “They’re only sleeping,” he assured me with a toothy grin that seemed almost ominous.

  Somehow, his simple words comforted me. Utterly exhausted, I lay back down and fell asleep.

  ***

  The next dream began with another awakening. It was night this time and the boxcar door was wide open. The cool October breeze blew in to rouse me. I found myself surrounded by those who had lain dead only hours before. They were all derelicts and hobos, mostly men, but some were women and children. They stared at me wildly, their eyes burning feverishly as if they were in the heated throes of some diseased delirium. There seemed to be an expression akin to wanton hunger in those hollow-eyed stares, but also something else. Restraint. That kept them in check, like pale statues clad in second-hand rags.

  I noticed that my young pal, Mickey, stood among them. The boy looked strangely similar to the others now. His once robust complexion had been replaced with a waxy pallor like melted tallow. “You must help us, Frank,” he said. “You must do something that is not in our power…something only you can perform.”

  I wanted to protest and demand to know exactly what the hell was going on, but I could only stand there and listen to what they had to say. After my instructions had been made clear, I simply nodded my head in agreement, no questions asked.

  ***

  The dream shifted again.

  It was still night and I was standing in the thicket on the edge of that hobo camp in the hollow. Carefully, and without noise, I crept among the make-shift shanties, performing the task that had been commanded of me. I removed the crude crosses, the cloves of garlic that hung draped above the doorways, and toted away the buckets of creek water that had been blessed by a traveling preacher-man.

  I spirited away all those things, clearing the camp, leaving only sleeping men. They continued their snoring and their unsuspecting slumber, totally oblivious to the danger that now descended from the tracks above.

  I stood there in the thicket and listened as the horrified screams reached their gruesome climax, then dwindled. They were replaced by awful slurping and sucking sounds. The pungent scent of raw garlic had moved southward on the breeze. In its place hung another…a nasty odor like that of hot copper.

  “Much obliged for the help,” called Mickey from the door of a shanty, his eyes as bright as a cat’s, lips glistening crimson. Then, with a wink, he disappeared back into the shack. The hellish sounds continued as I curled up in the midst of that dense thicket and, once again, fell asleep.

  ***

  That marked the end to that disturbing chain of nightmares, for a swift kick in the ribs heralded my true awakening. It was broad daylight when I opened my eyes and stared up at an overweight county sheriff.

  “Wake up, buddy,” he said gruffly. “Time to get up and move on.”

  I stretched and yawned. Much to my amazement, I found myself not in the old boxcar, but in the campside thicket. My bindle lay on the ground beside me. Confused, I rose to my feet and stared at the ramshackle huts and their ragged canvas overhangs. They looked to be completely deserted, as if no one had ever lived there at all.

  “There were others…” I said as I tucked my pack beneath my arm.

  The lawman nodded. “Someone reported a bunch of tramps down here, but it looks like they’ve all headed down the tracks. I suggest you do the same, if you don’t want to spend the next ninety days in the county workhouse.”

  I took that sheriff’s advice and, bewildered, started on my way.

  After a quarter-mile hike down the railroad tracks, I came to the boxcar.

  “Mickey!” I called several times, but received no answer. Had the boy moved on, leaving me behind? It was hard to figure, since we’d been tra
veling the country together for so very long.

  I tugged at the door of that abandoned boxcar, but was unable to open it. I placed my ear to the wall and heard nothing.

  ***

  Since that night, much has taken place.

  I’ve moved on down to Louisiana and back again, hopping freights when they’re going my way and when the yard bulls aren’t around to catch me in the act. Still, Mickey’s puzzling departure continues to bug me. That grisly string of dreams preys on my mind also. Sometimes it’s mighty hard to convince myself that they actually were dreams.

  Oh, and I found out why I’ve been so pale and listless lately. A few weeks ago, I visited my brother in Birmingham. Unlike me, he is a family man who made it through hard times rather well. He suggested I go see a doctor friend of his, which I did. The sawbones’ verdict was halfway what I expected it to be.

  For, you see, I’m dying. Seems that I have some sort of blood disease, something called leukemia. Now ain’t that a bitch?

  My dear brother insisted that I check into a hospital, but I declined. I’ve decided to spend my last days riding the rails. Who knows where I’ll end up…perhaps lying face down in a dusty ditch somewhere or in a busy train yard, trying to jump my last freight.

  However it turns out, I don’t really mind. When my end does come, at least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that mine will be a real death, deep and everlasting…and not one that is measured by the rising and the setting of the sun.

  THE DARK TRIBE

  When I was a boy, I loved to dig. The mystery of things hidden beneath the ground drove that childhood interest. I reckon having the soil of the earth beneath your fingernails holds a natural appeal for most boys…and can even carry on into adulthood, if farming or excavation becomes one’s life work.

  Mostly we would find possum teeth or Indian money, maybe an old arrowhead every now and then. But what if we had discovered a skeleton? Not just a random bone, but an entire human skeleton? There would have been no greater find for a boy of ten or twelve.

  Josh and Andy happened across such a wonderful treasure. But, as they discovered, old bones hold their share of dark secrets…and some more so than others.

  Hey, Josh…over here. I think I found something.”

  Josh Martin bumped his forehead on the dusty stud of the crawlspace ceiling for the third time that afternoon. He shook his head, trying to clear away the darting pinpricks of light, then joined his best friend at the far end of the four-foot cavity between bare earth and the reinforced floor of the Martin house.

  They had gotten the idea of the excavation from a PBS special about dinosaurs the night before. Or, rather, it had been Andy Judson’s idea. Josh had been kind of reluctant about digging around for ancient dinosaur bones, especially since the proposed site was located directly beneath his own house. But Andy always had that annoying way of talking him into things he really didn’t want to do. And he usually ended up paying dearly for their little escapades, too, by getting grounded or receiving a sound whipping from his dad.

  So far, they hadn’t discovered a single dinosaur bone, not even a crummy fossil. He should have listened to his father, who was a professor of archaeology at nearby Duke University. He had told him that there was little chance of anyone finding dinosaur bones in that part of North Carolina. Josh had passed that information on to Andy, but his friend was thoroughly convinced that their native soil did contain the petrified remains of lumbering Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus Rex…and that they had roamed the earth on which Josh’s two-story house now stood.

  Andy’s sudden announcement of a discovery after three hours of digging gave Josh renewed hope. Maybe they weren’t getting into trouble for nothing after all.

  “What’d you find?” he asked. Then his breath caught in his throat as he peeked over his friend’s shoulder and found himself staring full into the face of a skull.

  “Man, somebody’s done gone and buried a body under your house,” Andy said, his chubby face flush with excitement. “Have any of your old man’s students turned up missing lately? Maybe some chesty co-ed he had the hots for?”

  “Very funny,” Josh said. “And keep your voice down, will you? If my mom hears us down here, she’ll pitch a fit.”

  Andy reached down to grab the skull by the dirt-caked hollows of its eye sockets and wrench it from its ancient grave, but Josh stopped him. “No, that ain’t the way to do it. This is an important historical find. We have to be professional, like real archaeologists. Here, let me show you.”

  He retrieved a garden trowel and some other things from where he had been digging at the far end of the crawlspace. The summer sunlight threw diamond patterns through the latticework of the front porch foundation as he set to work, mimicking the actions of the scientists they had seen on the dinosaur show. First he cleared away the excess dirt, inch-by-inch, careful not to disturb the position of the exposed cranium. Then he meticulously brushed away particles of dust and earth with a small paintbrush he had procured from Dad’s workbench in the garage.

  Soon, the skull was completely uncovered. It was old…incredibly old. It was smooth and pitted, oddly enough not the ivory color that denuded bone normally was. Instead, it had a peculiar charcoal gray hue. The lower jaw was there too, and all the teeth were present and accounted for. In contrast to the color of the skull, they were dark and almost pearly black in color. The skull grinned ghoulishly up at the two ten-year-old boys, giving them the creeps.

  They continued with their work, painstakingly careful not to do any damage. By the time evening had rolled around and Mom was calling out the back door for Josh to wash up for supper, they had an entire skeleton lying in an open grave before them. It was completely intact, not a single gray bone out of place or missing.

  “Who do you think he was?” asked Andy.

  Josh shrugged. “I don’t know. An Indian, probably. Maybe an old Cherokee. Dad says there were a lot of them around these parts before they had to leave and walk something called the Trail of Tears.”

  “Looks like this guy missed out on the marathon.”

  They were about to leave the dank, earthy confines of the crawlspace, when the lingering rays of the setting sun washed through the latticework and glinted on something hidden deep inside the skeleton’s collapsed ribcage. Upon further inspection, they found it to be an arrowhead wedged tightly in the vertebrae of the spinal column, between the shoulder blades.

  It was no ordinary arrowhead…not like those Josh had seen made of sandstone or chiseled flint. No, this one seemed to almost be transparent and of a sparkling blue color. It looked as if it might be crafted from molten glass or maybe even from some precious jewel, like a sapphire.

  Andy, of course, had his hand out, ready to pluck it from the bone.

  Josh caught his wrist in time. “Are you terminally dumb or something? I told you before, this is real important stuff we’ve found here. We shouldn’t move anything…not until I get Dad to take a look at it.”

  “You’re the one who’s short on brain cells, pal,” Andy told him. “You’re not actually thinking of letting your old man take all the credit, are you? That’s what he’ll do, you know. He’s a big-shot college professor, while we’re only a couple of stupid kids. Figure it out for yourself.”

  Josh knew he was probably right. “What should we do, then?”

  “Let’s stick with the digging for a couple of days. Maybe we can find more old bones, maybe some pottery or a neat tomahawk or two. Then we’ll drag your dad into the limelight…but only after we make sure that we get most of the credit. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Josh agreed, and they shook on it. Then Mom called for him again—a little crankier this time—and they scurried from beneath the house and went to their respective supper tables, covered from head to toe in dank soil and spider webs.

  ***

  As the month of June came to an end and the Fourth of July approached, Josh and Andy continued their work in the crawlspace of the Martin house.
In a span of two weeks they had uncovered five more skeletons, bringing the final count to a grand total of six. All were ancient and amazingly intact, and all possessed the same puzzling gray color.

  Also, all six possessed the same strange, blue arrowheads wedged within their fleshless bodies. Some were caught between ribs, while others were stuck between the discs of spines or the tight crevices of leering skulls.

  “Really weird about these arrowheads,” Andy said for the umpteenth time. “Can’t we just pry one of them out? It’d make a neat good luck charm, along with my rabbit foot and lucky buckeye.”

  Josh was unswayed on the professionalism of crawlspace archaeology however. “Not yet. First we’ll get Dad and some of the other eggheads at the university to take a look at all this. Then maybe we can each have one of these arrowheads to keep.”

  Andy grumbled in agreement and, again, they left at the call of suppertime.

  Later that night, after he had accompanied his folks to the grocery store in quest of wieners and chips for the big Fourth of July cookout the Martins were having the following evening, Josh caught his father alone in his study.

  “Are there any Indian burial mounds around here?” he asked, trying to be as casual as possible.

  “Sure,” said Dad. “There must be hundreds of them around these parts. But they are all considered to be sacred ground, like a regular cemetery. In fact, it’s against the law to dig up a mound. The Cherokee people worked long and hard to have their ancient grounds protected by federal law. A man can be sent to prison for desecrating the grave of an Indian.”

  Josh swallowed hard and said nothing.

  The professor smiled and eyed his son, figuring maybe he was game for a good ghost story, now that they were on the subject of Indian history.