Old Gatestown Chronicles

by Eva Conrad

A Headache

  Sam Yowell sat down at the dinner table with his wife, Eileen, and their two little boys, Anthony and Daniel.  Anthony scooted his food around on the plate, while Daniel, the older of the two children, finished quickly, had seconds, and asked to be excused.

  “Don’t you want pie, Danny?” asked Eileen.

  “No, Mother.  Please, may I be excused?”

  “What’s your hurry that you can’t have a piece of your mother’s pie?” asked Sam as he raised his eyebrows at his oldest son.

  “Father, it’s just that Nicholas and I were working on a raft.”

  “Oh.  Well, have some pie, son.  The raft can wait.”

  Daniel nodded and accepted a slice of pie.  He realized that he was to eat it slowly, savoring every bite.

  “Mother, the pie is delicious,” he said politely.

  “You’re excused son,” said Sam, nodding.  As Daniel scooted in his chair Sam laid his hand over his wife’s.  “I’d like a piece, a nice big piece of that apple pie,” he said.

  Eileen cut a slice and carefully laid it on a plate.

  Anthony watched the tines of his father’s fork as they slid into the pie.

  “You will clean your plate, son, or there will be no pie.”

  “I’m sorry, Father.  It’s just that I keep hearing a voice in my ear.”  Anthony swatted at something unseen at the right side of his head.

  “I don’t hear anything,” said Eileen.

  “I know,” said Anthony. 

  Eileen and Sam looked at each other.  Anthony had been swatting at a phantom fly for several days now.  Everyone had just ignored it.

  “What does the voice say, Anthony?” asked Eileen.

  “It says look in the well.”

  This went on for another week.  Anthony reported that the voice was getting louder and kept clapping his hands over his ears in frustration.  Finally, Anthony began to moan.  “Make it stop, Mother!” he yelled.  Sam sent Daniel to fetch Dr. Williams.      

  Dr. Williams hurried over to the tavern with Daniel and they rushed upstairs where Anthony writhed in frustration on his bed.  “Doc, my head hurts and the voice won’t stop talking.”

  Dr. Williams proceeded to examine the boy and found nothing wrong, but he suspected that the boy had some sort of nervous problem.  “Before I say anything else,” he whispered to Sam and Eileen, “let me try a sedative.  Perhaps that will make it stop.”  He gave Anthony something to make him sleep, and soon, Anthony had settled down. 

  “I will be back at noon tomorrow,” said the doctor.  “Send Daniel by if anything else happens.”

  The physician returned the next day expecting his patient to be fully recovered. “Now there are two voices, Doc!” screamed Anthony upon seeing his physician enter the room, “They won’t stop!”

  “Hmmmm.  I think I had better send a letter to a colleague.  Mrs. Yowell, please see if you can get some nourishment into this boy.  Son, I’m going to give your mother this medicine and she is going to give it to you in three hours.  But she must wait three hours.  Then you can sleep some more.  I promise, I am going to try and help you if I can find the answer.”

  Eileen gave the medicine as scheduled and soon Anthony was asleep.  She sat down with her sewing basket and some garments that needed repair.  Within an hour Anthony was screaming again.  She couldn’t calm him; he ran downstairs into the tavern where a group was gathered in discussion.

  “She just has no idea where he could be!  No one has seen the boy since last week.  He must be dead by now,” said Dr. Williams.

  “If he wandered off, I’ll bet a coyote got ‘im,” Frank Holbrook declared.

  “Well, why are we sitting here like a bunch of useless windbags?  We ought to be out there looking some more.  Now, where haven’t we looked?” exhorted Arlie McIntosh with an air of determination.

  “AGHHHHH!” screamed Anthony Yowell as he stomped down the stairs.

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen, my boy isn’t well,” began Sam.  Dr. Williams rushed to meet the child at the foot of the stairs.

  “What’s wrong with you, boy?” croaked Arlie.

  “I hear three voices, and they are yelling at me to go look in the well.  And I’m gonna go look in every God-dam well in this town and maybe they’ll shut up!”

  “Didn’t you folks hear the boy?” said Arlie.

  The missing child was found in the old town well in the center of town.  It had run dry some years before and had simply never been covered up. 

  Anthony was hailed as a sort of hero with mysterious powers and was credited for saving the child’s life.  From that point on, Anthony was a boy and later a man of few words, but whenever he chose to speak, people listened.