Dead Men (and Women) Walking (6 page)

I was 27 when it happened. I
was not a boy, and sure as the world is round, I was not
drunk.

All I know is what I’ve been
told. And, of course, what I saw. What I saw is what happened to
Buster Lennon on that cold December day just before Christmas back
in 1991.

Babbling again, aren’t I?
That’s just like me.

Buster picked me up on the
morning of the 13th. It was a Friday. Friday the 13th. Hot damn, I
should have known something then. Why weren’t we at work,
anyway?

As I said earlier it was a
cold morning—bitter cold. Buster was dressed in army fatigues with
a cap on his head that proudly displayed Dale Earnhardt, The
Intimidator, and a bright red 5 in the center of it. At the bottom
of the hat was the years Earnhardt had won the NASCAR championship:
‘80, ‘86, ‘87, ‘90, ‘91.

I thought it kind of strange
though, that he was wearing tennis shoes and not his hiking boots
or his galoshes that he wears when we would go fishing out in
Wateree.

“
We’re going huntin’,”
Buster told me. “I think I know where the well is.”

“
The well?” I asked. I felt
my words choking in my throat. I know I didn’t hear him right. I
thought.

“
Yeah, Johnny. THE well.
You know? The well that guy stuck that girl in some thousand years
ago.”

“
You mean Miss
Catherine?”

“
Was that her name?” he
asked as he looked up toward the sky. “What was his, do you
know?”

What was his name? I
couldn’t remember it for the life of me.

We drove from my apartment
in Bishopville to the outskirts of the swamp. About a 45-minute
drive it was. We drove down the dirt road to the gate in his ’77
Chevy pick-up truck. The truck couldn’t go any further than the
gate. The swamp’s weeds and shrubbery had grown over the fence and
gate that had been built in nineteen zero and eight. From there we
were on foot. It was one hell of a trip to the water’s edge—the
shrubbery had overrun the entire length from the gate to the
water.

Wait. Wait. I’m getting a
little ahead of myself here.

“
Look, Johnny,” Buster
yelled, excitedly. He was getting out of the truck and pointing to
what looked like a rotted out fence post. The shrubs and overgrowth
was now gray or brown, either from the winter’s cold air or from
years of just being dead. Or maybe even both. The only real green
that we could see was the kudzu that was growing on the trees that
were still alive—though barely.

He pulled out a long machete
from behind the seat of the truck. He walked over to the gate and
carefully unsheathed the machete. He raised his arm high above his
head. In a clean swipe of his arm, he brought the blade down on the
greenery that was clinging to the gate’s old fence post. It made a
loud ‘thud’ as blade hit plant and wooden post. He continued to cut
away at the plants on the gate until he had managed to clear away
enough of them so he could get a hold of the gate.

“
Give me a hand, Johnny,”
he said as he dropped the machete to the ground. He grabbed a pair
of work gloves out of one of his pockets and tossed them to me.
“Put these on.”

“
Buster, this is posted
land,” I said. “We could get into all sorts of trouble.”

“
Ahh. . . come on,” he
countered. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Johnny?”

I left it back at my
apartment, I thought to myself. I lost it the moment you mentioned
the well.

My hesitation was enough to
get a look from Buster.

“
Just give me a hand,” he
said. He sounded very agitated.

I pulled on the work gloves
and together we pulled on the gate. At first we couldn’t get it to
move, but after Buster had cut away some hidden vines we were able
to pull it free. The gate dragged on the ground as we pulled on it.
There was no way we would be able to put it back in place on the
way out.

As I pulled my work gloves
off and stuffed them into my back pocket Buster went back to work
with his machete. He was beginning to clear a path with amazing
quickness.

“
Buster,” I said as he
hacked at the dead plants. “Buster? I don’t like this. We shouldn’t
be here.”

By the time I was able to
get the words out of my mouth Buster was too far from me to hear
what I was saying. Not that it would have really mattered anyway.
He was hacking away at the plants, clearing a path big enough for
three people to walk side by side through and still have a little
room on both sides of the end people. He looked like he was running
as he swung the machete down, back and forth. The Mad Machete Man
from Bishopville whacking at the plants with absolutely no mercy.
All he had to do was laugh and he really would have seemed
maniacal.

“
Come on, John,” he yelled
back. His voice was faint.

That’s when I realized I had
gotten back in the truck and closed my door shut. For a moment I
wasn’t really sure I had ever gotten out, much less helped Buster
move the gate.

“
Aaah. . . shee-it!” Buster
yelled.

I had gotten out of the
truck and had been headed toward the path when I heard Buster’s
scream. I almost dropped a load in my undies when I heard that
scream. I froze. I was scared.

“
Bu. . . Buster?” I asked,
quietly. I walked slowly through the area that Buster had cut with
his machete. All the limbs that he had cut were dead and lying in
his wake. Graying moss hung off of dead tree limbs; dead vines
clung to the trees and hung off of foot thick branches from those
slumping trees. Kudzu plants were all over the trees.

Abraham. That was his name.
Miss Catherine’s lover’s name was Abraham. Same as Lincoln and that
guy in the Bible whose people were to be given to the Promised
Land. Nice fellow that Abraham was.

Babble. . . babble. .
.

“
Buster?” I yelled as I
began to run to find him.

“
What?” Buster’s voice came
back. I stopped running. Buster sounded irritated.

“
Where are you?” I called
out, sheepishly. A shameful feeling it was at being scared of
hearing him scream.

“
Over here.”

I walked, slowly at first
then quickened my pace. I was trying to keep the fear of being in
this dead swamp where 67 other people had met their demise from
getting to me. I certainly didn’t want to look like I was afraid to
be there in front of Buster. The teasing would never end if he knew
exactly how I felt about the place.

Buster, as far as I could
tell, wasn’t afraid of anything. He always reminded me of that
bulldog in those old Warner Brothers™ cartoons. He was the bulldog
who wore the brown derby and the red sweater. What was his name?
Butch?

I was more like the little
Chihuahua that seemed to always be bothering good ole, tough ole
Butch.

“
What you doing, Butch?”
the Chihuahua would ask as he bounded from side to side, dancing
around Butch as he walked along the street. “You gonna pound some
cat, huh, Butch? Can I go, too, huh, Butch?”

“
Ahh. . . Shut-up,” the
bulldog would always say right after he backhanded the Chihuahua
across the room or the yard or even the street.

“
Yeah, yeah, sure Butch,”
the little Chihuahua would say then look toward the camera, as if
he were real, and say, “That’s Butch. He’s my hero. He’s not afraid
of anything.”

“
Buster? Buster? What you
doing, Buster? Going to go see your girl, huh, Buster? Going down
to the arcade, huh, Buster? Can I go too, huh, Buster?”

Ka-pow. Ka-thump.

“
Ahh. . .
shut-up.”

“
Yeah. . . yeah, sure,
Buster.”

I half walked, half ran to
where Buster was standing. The Chihuahua was fresh in my mind. He
was hacking away at a tall, bushy thicket. Kudzu dangled off of it,
along with dead thistles and thorns and vines. There must have been
over a hundred years worth of dead plants that made up that
thicket.

“
What yah….what yah doing,
Buster?” I asked, tentatively, and somewhat out of breath. The
little Chihuahua was waiting to get the backhand.

“
I think I found it,” he
said. Again, he was excited.

“
Found it?”

“
Yeah, the well,” he said
flatly as he rolled his eyes at me. Sweat poured off of
him.

“
The well?” I asked,
dumbfounded.

Buster looked at me with
disgust on his face. “Damn it, man, what’s wrong with you
today?”

“
The curse, man,” I said,
immediately and without thinking. “We shouldn’t be here.” I felt
like I was pleading with him.

Buster threw his machete to
the ground. I knew I had said the wrong thing. What was I supposed
to say, anyway? I was scared.

“
Stay here,” he said. He
walked away and back up the path he had cut. I was actually glad he
walked away. It was better then the ranting and raving he could
have done.

I sat on a rotting stump
while I waited. A spider the size of a quarter crawled out of a
hole at the bottom of the stump. He was a wood brown with black
lines that traced his body. He was the perfect color for his
surroundings. He stopped and turned in my direction as if he were
looking at me. I guess he didn’t like me sitting on his house. I
brushed my foot at him and he scampered off under some
leaves.

It seemed like Buster was
gone for a long while—too long. Eternity seemed to pass me by, but
by my watch it had only been less than ten minutes. I jumped when
he called my name.

“
Johnny?”

“
What?” I answered as I
jumped from my seat on the stump.

Buster laughed at the way he
had startled me. “Why are you so nervous, man? We’re all alone,
Johnny. Ain’t nobody here, ‘cept you and me.”

This did nothing to comfort
me.

Buster had two six packs of
beer in his hand—Miller Lite, I believe they were. They had been in
the back of the truck in an old blue cooler filled with ice. He
pulled one of the beers off of the template and tossed it to
me.

“
No, thanks,” I said as I
caught the can just shy of hitting me in the face. I set it down on
my spider friend’s house. Leave it for the spider, I thought. He
might want a drink later.

Buster rolled his eyes
again. He pulled one of the beers off of the template for himself
and opened it up. He took a few gulps and looked at me.

“
What?” he asked,
disgustedly.

“
What?” I repeated. Here it
comes, I thought.

“
What? What’s your deal,
Johnny?”

“
Buster, this place is
cursed. I don’t. . .”

“
Cursed?” Buster
interrupted. “You’re worried about a bunch of BS legends? They tell
these stories to keep people out of this swamp—they’re not
real.”

“
People have disappeared
out here, Buster.”

Once again Buster
interrupted me.

“
People disappear all the
time, Johnny. The only difference is they’ve found a few bodies
back here. Hell, have they really found any bodies or is that just
some mumbo-jumbo they made up also? And all that bull crap about
that woman—that Catherine chick—is just a stupid story.”

Buster picked up his machete
and looked at me.

“
Are you going to help me
or not?” he asked.

Wow, I thought. He didn’t go
off near as bad as usual.

“
Yeah, sure, Buster,” I
said.

That’s Buster. He’s my
hero.

Ka-pow. Ka-thump.

Ahh. . . shut-up.

I pulled the pair of work
gloves out of the back pocket of my old blue jeans and put them on.
I pulled the dead branches and thorns away as Buster cut them down.
We must have worked a solid two hours before Buster’s machete hit
something other than plants.

-Clank-

The sound of steel hitting
brick stopped us both. We looked at each other and then we started
pulling branches in a fevered pace.

I have to admit I was
getting excited, myself, as we cleaned around the base of the well.
We stood back and looked at what was left of the 200 year old well.
It stood about waist high on me and was still in pretty good shape.
It was a good four feet in diameter. The only thing that was
missing was its wood frame that had held the pulley and crank.
Other than that it looked as if all of the bricks were in place
with very little deterioration.

Buster opened another beer
and drank it down. He walked over to the well and dropped the can
into the well. It clanked a hollow clank that echoed up from the
bottom of the well when it hit.

“
Aww. . . I guess the
well’s all dried out,” he said sarcastically. Buster spat into the
well.

I looked at him in
disbelief, my excitement clearly gone now.

“
Legend tells us, Johnny,
my boy, that this thing is a wishing well. Let’s see if it’s true.”
Buster had a wild-eyed look on his face. “They say Miss Catherine
was tossed into this very well, way back in... umm. . . what year
was that Mr. John-Miester?”