“That’s what I figured,” Elmer said, standing on wobbly legs.
“You’re looking a mite pale,” Wally said. “Heat getting to you? These wool clothes are a bitch.”
“Yeah,” Elmer said. “How about a cup of coffee?”
“Sure, come on over to the truck.”
“Got any of that Jack left? I could use a little lift.”
“Yeah. What happened to your hand?”
“It’s nothing. Just an old war wound.”
“Hilarious,” Wally said, belching the word. “Come on, before Jeff makes us set up camp.”
They passed Jeff, Wally snapping off an open-handed Confederate salute. Elmer imitated it, making sure Jeff saw the blood. Jeff didn’t smile or smirk, merely returned the salute as if they were miles from the front lines and settling into the routine of a weekend bivouac. Elmer heard the distant rattling of a snare drum from the forest, but figured it was another trick of his imagination, so he tucked the bill of his kepi over his eyes and followed Wally to the canteen.
He didn’t look back at the shadows beneath the freckled October canopy, nor the shapes that might have moved amid the low-lying gloom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The morning sun poured its voyeuristic light through the trailer window.
Vernon Ray fingering the ragged opening in the wool just above the kepi’s bill. The hole was ringed by a rust-colored stain and it could only have been made by a musket ball. The original wearer of the kepi had undoubtedly died from the wound. Surgery of any kind during the Civil War almost invariably ended in gangrene or staph infection, if typhus didn’t get you first.
Vernon Ray tried on the cap for the tenth time. He’d slept with it under his pillow, afraid his dad would see it. Dad’s memorabilia and replicas were carefully catalogued, so Vernon Ray couldn’t be accused of stealing the kepi from The Room, but he didn’t know how to explain where he’d gotten it.
But he shouldn’t have worried; Capt. Davis was far too busy dressing for Stoneman’s Raid to notice that his son had been late for dinner and sick enough to miss school.
Vernon Ray stood before his dresser mirror, tilting the bill forward so he had to peer out from under the oiled canvas.
Soldier material. Battle fit and ready for action.
His reflection snapped off an open-palmed Rebel salute and he marched four brisk steps until he reached his bed then spun on one heel and marched smartly back to the dresser. He let his feet hammer the vinyl flooring, making as much noise as he wanted. Dad was already at Aldridge Park for the re-enactment and Mom had tagged along as part of the civilian attachment, probably brewing up some gritty coffee and trying to keep the hem of her hoop skirt out of the fire.
Vernon Ray should have been in school, but he’d pretended to be sick. Good old belly ache, his folks were used to it, his dad saying he was born with a “weak stomach, probably got it from Martha Faye’s side of the family.”
The emptiness of the house gave him a tingle inside, so in a way, the reported ache wasn’t a lie. He’d not been nauseated, just aching for something he couldn’t name.
He thought about breaking into The Room to try on some gear, but Dad had added an extra lock after last week’s little adventure and Vernon Ray couldn’t gain access without damaging the wood. Besides, he had his own uniform now, or at least a piece of it.
“Private Davis reporting for duty, sir,” he said to the mirror, half expecting the colonel’s face to appear in the silvered glass and give him his marching orders. He’d dreamed of the colonel, though the events had been diffuse and broken up in bits of restless sleep. All he remembered was darkness, a cold campfire, and the whispers of voices from hidden quarters.
He cocked the cap to one side in a jaunty pose, goofing off around camp to entertain the soldiers. They deserved a little break from the grim duty of legalized murder. He reached up to adjust it back—
Tak tak tak.
Someone was tapping on the window.
Vernon Ray flung the kepi under his bed and thought about jumping onto the covers. He was pale and shaky enough to fake a fever. But only one person ever knocked on his window. Vernon Ray went to it, and there was Bobby’s gorgeous, worried face. Vernon Ray cranked the window open.
“Jeez, I thought you were a goner,” Bobby said.
“Nah, I’m okay. Just got a belly ache.”
“Sorry I ran out on you. I was—”
“Forget it.”
“It was black hat, total bad guy.”
“It was the only thing you could do. And I told you to, remember?”
“Still . . . .”
“Forget it,” Vernon Ray said, his gaze crawling back to the space under the bed where the kepi lay in shadows.
“What happened?”
“Why aren’t you in school?”
“I skipped after first period. It’s just gym.”
“You like gym.”
“I thought he was going to slice you like liver mush, Vee.”
Vernon Ray released the tabs on the window screen and pushed it out, where Bobby caught it and set it against the trailer’s aluminum skirt. Bobby launched himself up and inside the room. Vernon Ray sat on the bed while Bobby slouched at the computer desk and stared at a chess board where Vernon Ray was in the middle of a solo game.
“He just disappeared after you left,” Vernon Ray said. “You know how those theories of transubstantiation go. It probably took all his energy to materialize enough to scare you away.”
“Yeah, I felt all tingly and weird, like static electricity was crackling on the tips of my hair.”
“Drawing juice from us, like a car draining a battery.”
“So he didn’t do anything?”
“Nah,” Vernon Ray said, wondering if Bobby would mention their near kiss. He doubted it, since the bedroom would be about the most uncomfortable place to bring it up.
“What are we going to do about the ghosts?”
“Why do you think we have to do anything? They’re not good or evil, they’re just there.”
“Except for what happened to Carter, you mean? And I got a feeling I’m on their hit list and I’m not even a Yankee.”
“Kirk’s Raiders were rejects from both sides,” Vernon Ray said. “They were equal-opportunity haters. If you believe the history books, but I’m not so sure of the truth anymore.”
“I don’t get it. They let you go twice now. They could have got you when we were spying on them from the Hole. Now Col. Creep has you cornered and just disappears?”
“Maybe I was born lucky. But he let you go, too.”
“They must want something,” Bobby said.
“Certainly not prisoners.”
“Maybe just casualties.” Bobby reached across the desk and moved one of the chess pieces. “Check.”
Vernon Ray crossed the room to the chess board. “You’re making two dangerous assumptions, Bobby. You assume we can actually have an effect on the ghosts and you assume whatever we do will be in their best interests.”
“Sure, ‘Go toward the light’ and all that crap. They probably have another level of heaven to move on to, or whatever.”
Vernon Ray moved a knight, his favorite piece due to its deceptive nature, blocking Bobby’s threat to the king. “What if that’s the worst possible thing for them? What if you’re sending them to heaven instead of the hell where they belong?”
Let’s not belong together. Maybe Kirk knows something we don’t.
“That’s not the point. They don’t belong here. When it’s over, it’s over, and you just bury the past and move on.”
“And who made Bobby Eldreth lord and master of the universe?”
“Hey, at least I’m trying to do something.” Bobby slid a pawn forward.
“Maybe we should just leave them alone.”
“And hope they go away?”
“And hope they do whatever they’re meant to do.” Vernon Ray angled his bishop forward. “Checkmate.”
&nb
sp; Bobby leaned over the board and flicked his king with one finger so that it fell and rolled across the board, scattering other pieces. “I’m going to the battlefield. You can sit around and wait for them to take over the town if you want.”
“What in the world would they want with the town?”
“That one ghost soldier, the one we saw on the railroad tracks? Earley Eggers? He’s like an outcast, a deserter or something. They were shooting at him when they killed Carter. You heard the reporter. Earley Eggers lived in Titusville, and maybe he’s bound for home and the others don’t like it.”
“Like that guy in Cold Mountain,” Vernon Ray said. His dad not only possessed an autographed copy of the Charles Frazier novel, he’d made the family watch the Nicole Kidman movie every night during its entire two-week run at the Regal Cineplex.
“Maybe they’re hunting him.”
“But that doesn’t make sense, because if they can get out of the Hole, they can escape, too.”
“Maybe Deserter Boy has found another way to transubstantiate. A portable power source. Or maybe he finally heeded the call of hearth of home.”
“V-Ray, if we could prove all this, we’d be rich and famous, like what’s-his-name on that paranormal show.”
“We couldn’t even snag a decent picture of a ghost. What, you expect to get one in the guest chair on ‘Oprah’?”
“Well, let’s go check out the war. Maybe Kirk will come down to scout out the enemy. If nothing else, we’ll get to see our dads make fools of themselves.”
“Sounds like an adventure. Beats the hell out of algebra.”
They stood at the same time, bringing them closer together than they’d been since Bobby had climbed in the window. Vernon Ray realized they’d deliberately put distance between themselves the entire time and now they shared a collective breath.
“Uh, about that thing in the shed,” Bobby said.
“I told you, he disappeared right after you left.”
“No, the other thing.”
“Nothing happened, remember?”
“Yeah. I just want you to know it’s okay. I mean, if I liked guys—you know, in that way . . . .”
Vernon Ray lowered his eyes, bit his lip to rein in a pout, and nodded, willing himself not to cry. Christ, first I try to kiss him and now I’m about to open the floodgates like a goddamned little girl.
He shifted his gaze to the bed and the kepi, whose brim was just visible at the dusty edge of darkness. He recalled the comfort and security the hat gave him, the sense of belonging, as if he’d finally discovered himself and that he was okay.
It didn’t matter what Bobby or anyone else—any living person—thought of him, because the colonel found him worthy.
“It was nothing,” Vernon Ray said.
Bobby blurted his words in a rush, as if letting them linger might leave him vulnerable and exposed in the bits of silence between. “You’re my best friend and I love you like a brother, and whatever you do is fine with me, but I love Karen Greene and not guys and I don’t think you’re sick or anything—”
“Don’t.” Vernon Ray raised his hand, gaining self-confidence through the memory of the colonel’s understanding-but-hollow gaze. “Don’t try too hard. That’s worse than not trying at all.”
Bobby moved to the window and poised like a superhero about to fly to somebody’s rescue. “I’m cool with whatever.”
Then Bobby was gone, slipping out with an athletic grace that caused a mild flutter in Vernon Ray’s stomach.
The colonel’s phantom words echoed again: We don’t belong together.
He grabbed his backpack, retrieved the kepi, brushed it over his head just long enough to savor its comfort, and then squirreled it away. Tossing the backpack over his shoulder, he followed his best friend through the window and into a world where being queer was weirder than being supernatural.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sheriff Frank Littlefield wove his cruiser between the horse trailers that were lined up along the edge of the parking lot. The Living History Society had set up a fledgling camp, and a few of the soldiers were sitting on logs and eating from tin plates. Women in bonnets and dresses bustled around tending fires and carrying water from the creek.
A couple of kids in wool britches and loose cotton shirts were playing army, using tree branches as make-believe rifles. As the sheriff got out of the car, he heard one yell, “Bang! You’re dead.”
The intended target, a red-headed boy whose floppy hat nearly covered his eyes, said, “Am not!”
Which Littlefield believed could just about sum up the situation for a lot of folks in Titusville lately.
The clouds were high and fine, promising a cool, dry October day. Mist wreathed the faces of the mountains, the vapor rising from dewy valleys to burn away under the sun. Laughter and birdsong filled Aldridge Park, and the sheriff relaxed a little.
Just a normal day in the war.
Cindy Baumhower was interviewing one of the uniformed men, camera slung over one shoulder. The incident at the bowling alley would be the headline, but a feature story on the local tourist event would get some good play to stroke the business community. Littlefield had cited Mac McAllister with discharging a firearm in a public building and disturbing the peace, but the bowling mogul had made bail before the ink had dried on the processing papers.
If Littlefield didn’t somehow plug the Hole and find a way to exterminate this little supernatural infestation, then Pickett County might become the Disneyland of the Dead, with ghosts pouring in from every crack in the Appalachian Mountains. And that would draw national media attention, which in turn would bring investigative reporters who would want to know more about The Red Church, Littlefield’s dead chief deputy, and the whereabouts of Rev. Archer McFall.
The past should stay in the past and the dead should stay dead, and the living deserved to rest in peace far more than did those who had gone before.
Littlefield walked to the camp as a couple of dress-up soldiers mounted horses at the end of the field. The air was ripe with the odors of creek mud, horse manure, and wood smoke. A dozen or so locals had stopped by during their coffee breaks to get an early glimpse of the coming battle, and a handful were gathered around Cindy as if watching the media coverage of the event was more exciting than the event itself.
A line of locust fencing marked one end of the park and a dense row of hardwoods bordered the other two sides. The shaded woods seemed a little menacing in their closeness, especially since they were part of the same living-and-breathing ecosystem that covered Mulatto Mountain.
Christ, now you’re even giving trees the power of the paranormal. What next, Casper the Friendly Ghost in tap-dancing shoes?
Jeff Davis was drinking coffee under a raised tent flap that was held up with skinned birch branches. A wooden table had his papers spread across it, and Littlefield assumed they contained maps and details of the re-enactment.
As the sheriff passed through the camp, he felt a strange kinship with the uniformed men, even though he’d arrested a couple of them. Elmer, who had once gone down for a drunk and disorderly during an explosive Fourth of July, waved at him with a bandaged hand and drank from a canvas-covered canteen.
“How’s it going, Jeff?” Littlefield said when he reached the tent.
“It’s ‘Captain’ out here,” Jeff said. His hat was off and his dark hair was slicked back with some sort of gel.
Or maybe possum fat, if he’s gone Southern for the duration.
“I just dropped by to check on things,” Littlefield said, wondering whether Jeff now considered himself of higher rank than sheriff. “People are a mite antsy after the McAllister incident.”
“Mac’s no longer in the regiment,” Jeff said.
“No, but he was shooting at invisible people, and there’s a little too much of that going around lately. Not to mention the real people who are getting shot.”
“War is hell,” Jeff said, his eyes cold and strange. He seemed a di
fferent man than the one who’d been sitting in Littlefield’s office the day before, somber and weighted with duty. “Whether it’s real or not.”
“The permit allows me the right to inspect any firearms on the premises,” Littlefield said.
Jeff smiled and fished the revolver from his holster. He set the pistol on the table as if daring the sheriff to spin it for a game of Russian roulette. “Go ahead. Colt revolver, a period piece. Only 4,000 issued.”
Littlefield, who appreciated firearms but was no historian, picked it up and opened the chamber. He shucked out one of the bullets and looked at it. The jacket was packed with tissue paper. Blanks had been known to kill people, most notably the actor Brandon Lee, who was shot by a prop pistol on set. A permit had not done a bit of good in stopping the concussion from propelling a lodged slug into Lee’s abdomen.
“What about your soldiers?” Littlefield asked, replacing the bullet and clicking the chamber closed.
“They’re a little rough around the edges but we’ll be ready when Stoneman and his boys roll through,” Jeff said. “Not much on spit and polish, but plenty of grit and backbone.”
Littlefield gave a smile, his first in days. “I meant their safety habits, not their fighting spirit.”
Jeff’s eyes remained distant. “They know how to handle their weapons. We’ve been training all year for this battle.”
“I’m sure the Confederacy will sleep better tonight, knowing you’re standing sentry.” Littlefield handed the revolver back to Jeff, butt first. The two mounted cavalry units thundered across the field, sod flying from the horses’ hooves.
“It’s not just about defending the home front,” Jeff said. “It’s a matter of principle.”
Littlefield flinched in anticipation of a lecture in which state’s rights and not slavery was to blame for the Civil War. It had been boring in the seventh grade and had not grown a bit more compelling in the years since. Instead, the erstwhile captain rolled the right tip of his moustache between his fingers and stared off toward Mulatto Mountain and slipped into a monotone, as if not aware of his words.
“The real enemy’s waiting up there. The ones who won’t do the honorable thing and give their lives for their beliefs. No, they make a mockery of all that is noble and sacred, all that’s worth fighting for.”
Ghost Box: Six Supernatural Thrillers Page 54
