Authors: Thomas Cater
A clock was ticking annoyingly inside my head; it was
either white noise or Arcadian r
h
ythms. Even Virgil sensed the urgency. He was driving
like a teenager with his first can of beer flooding his bladder.
“Do you get the feeling that something is pushing us?”
I asked. He was oblivious of my question. “What’s the big hurry?” I said.
He eased off the accelerator. “I don’t know,” he
replied. “It just seems important that we get there as soon as possible.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m beginning to dread that feeling.”
The cemetery was an old one. There were headstones
with birth dates on them that went back nearly 200 years. It was silent save
for one old and dented pickup truck in the narrow drive. An awning -- to keep
rain off the exposed earth -- was covering a gaping hole, while a worker continued
to vanish and re-appear in the hole.
“There’s our fresh dug grave,” I said.
Virgil drove to the site over a path that had gone to
weeds and potholes. The gravedigger stopped working long enough to watch our
approach. We stopped and climbed out; he resumed his work at a much faster
pace. We stood at the foot of the grave, Virgil in his dark blue suit and I in
my tight-fitting pinstripe.
“Afternoon,” the man in the dusty blue jeans jacket
and pants piped, barely taking time to pause between ladling shovel’s full of
earth.
“Afternoon,” Virgil replied.
“You gentlemen come to pay your respects?” He asked.
Virgil hunkered down, told him we’d come to have a
look around and then casually scooped up a handful of fresh-dug dirt, as if he
were conducting some kind of soil test.
The gravedigger mumbled something about ‘nothing to
see here but carking bones,’ stopped shoveling and watched Virgil fondle the
dark soil.
“Looking for anything in particular?” he asked.
Virgil picked up more dirt, sifted it through his
fingers and put a portion in his pocket.
“No, nothing in particular,” he replied, brushing the
excess
soil from
his hands.
“You fellers feel all right?” the gravedigger asked.
We nodded, glancing at each other, like windsocks
blowing in the breeze.
“That’s good,” he said, watching
carefully
as I
ran my fingers through a handful of soil.
“Do you mind if we borrow a little dirt from you?” I
asked.
A pained expression flitted across his face. He got a
firm grip on the shovel and moved to the far end of his hole.
“I knowed you was a’ comin’,” he said,
enthusiastically. “I could feel it in my bones. You boys are goin’ ghost
chasin’ to the Ryder house, right?”
I nearly fell into the hole. “How did you know?” I
asked.
He smiled and loosened his grip on the shovel.
“I can tell by the clothes you’re wearin’. It’s not
every day a man puts on that kind of finery to visit an empty fresh dug grave.”
“So tell me what else you know about graves,
especially the graves at the Ryder house.”
He gazed at the bottom of the hole he was digging.
“When you dig a grave, you dig it deep, six feet at least. Less would surely
hold a body down. There’s something about the weight of dirt on a corpse that
keeps it calm and peaceful. It's like a security blanket. The graves on the
back of that hill behind the Ryder house are too shallow. The coffins nearly
rose out of the ground one spring. They threw dirt on ‘em, but only enough to
cover ‘em up and get ‘em out of sight. If everything is goin’ to be all right,
those coffins have to be planted deep.”
This was the natural way, the way of a man of the
soil, I thought. It would not work for men of sophistication who searched for natural
meanings to life and death.
“Is that all? You mean all that is required is to bury
a few coffins deeper and everything will be all right at the Ryder mansion?”
“No, that ain’t all,” he continued. “There’s more. The
woman who lived in that house weren’t no ordinary woman. She lost her mind when
she was a young gal, lost it because her pappy was in league with the devil. He
filled her mind with all kinds of terrible stories about things that lived in
the world and things that entered into a body when it was sleepin’ I can’t say
as I blame her, living way out there in the middle of nowhere and nothing but a
dumb colored gal to lead her around. Once she lost her mind, she became like
two people,” the gravedigger said, “One on the inside
and the
other
on
the outside.
“They say she never knew a man’s love, but I heard
things were different. I heard that if a man went to the old mine entrance and
put his ear to the ground; he could hear the sounds of a man clawing, trying to
dig his way out of the mine. I heard there was a man who found his way from the
mine into that house, while her pappy was away making his self rich; and he and
Elinore laid together…in fact…Oh, nothin’, it’s just gossip.”
The old man had fired up our imaginations and suddenly
whizzed on the coals.
“Go on
,
man, tell us,” Virgil said.
“Well, a long time ago, there was a story that Elinore
had a child…” He paused and waited to see what effect his words were having. “They
say she had a baby that weren’t no baby at all, they say it was some kind of
creature, or animal with long red hair all over its body and teeth like a dog. Her
pappy covered it up pretty good. They say he snatched it out of the cradle one
night while Elinore was sleeping.”
He paused and re-positioned the shovel.
“Yes, go on,” Virgil urged.
“Now mind, I told you this is gossip.”
“Please continue.”
“They say he took the little critter out of its crib
and buried it alive.”
We waited silently for him to continue.
“No one knows for sure. It’s just a story that started
many years ago by some old black gal who was taking care of Elinore while she
was in the hospital. She said she heard her talkin’ in her sleep about a little
baby child that someone had come and stole from her. No one paid any mind to
anything that woman said, not since her mind seemed to be filled up with so
many frightening things.”
“Is that possible?” I asked Virgil.
He shrugged. “It’s the first time I ever heard
anything like that.”
“Yes, but you’re not a student of the Ryder family
history. You don’t know what could have gone on out there.”
He shrugged again. “What other gossip have you heard
about that place, old-timer?” Virgil asked.
He shook his head. “That’s it, I told you all I know.
‘Cept I think you’re wasting’ your time filling your pockets with dirt.
Whatever is stalking through that house ain’t goin’ to be put off by a handful
of dirt.”
“And what do you think will put it off?”
“A proper burial,” he said.
“You mean a six-foot deep hole?”
“I mean someone has got to lay those spirits to rest
properly. If it’s Elinore, it ain’t the spirit of the old woman, but of the
blind child that’s livin’ in fear of life and death, in fear of all those
demons the old man put in her mind and what
ever
may still be livin’ in that house.”
I reached down to offer my hand. He was making sense
in a way I could appreciate, simple physical actions, rituals to placate
restless spirits. The souls of the deceased can't be turned out; they have to
be prepared for what lay beyond.
“If what you say is true, I’ll do my very best to help
Elinore find peace,” I said.
The old man’s eyes began to fill with tears. “God
bless you, son.”
He turned quickly back to the task of making the grave
even deeper.
“You know that guy?” I asked.
“Never saw him before,” Virgil replied.
Chapter Thirteen
We turned onto Cherry Hill Road and drove for ten
minutes. Eventually, we came to a weathered gate propped against two locust
posts tangled in rusting barbed wire. There were grammatically flawed signs
hanging from trees and fences expounding the wonders of ‘the man of the woods’
miracle cure for everything from blindness to toe-jam. One weathered sign
itemized twenty-nine natural ingredients that went into the blending of his
celebrated tonic.
“
Sounds like
there may be some physiological
ly
redeeming value in that blend of potables,” I said.
“Not much in the way of flavor, though,” Virgil
replied, “but there are those who swear by it.”
We climbed through a hole in the fence and followed
the narrow path to the woodsman’s cabin, a dilapidated building stuck together
with tarpaper, corrugated steel and mildewed plywood. A sign on the door
proclaimed, ‘gone cat-fishin’.
Attached to the back of the cabin was a wrecked
greenhouse half the length of a football field. Rows of plants grew in thick
clusters, one next to the other, limbs entwined. The weeds were high around the
greenhouse and threatening to take over the herbal patches and everything
within range. Jars, tins and plastic bags stuffed with an endless variety of
weeds and plants surrounded an ancient herbal mill and grinder. The effects of
the woodsman’s labors were clear.
We walked around and through the pharmaceutical mill,
reading the misspelled or abbreviated labels on the jars and cans. I found a
metal tin with the inscription ‘thorn apple’ scrawled on masking tape. We
continued our search and eventually found a plastic garbage bag filled with
drying weeds inscribed as ‘nightshade’.
We took sprigs of thorn apple and stuffed them into
the jackets and pockets of the suits. By all occult powers and maledictions, we
were prepared botanically to re-enter the house.
“I’m glad you’re coming with me,” I said. “You’re not
going to believe the condition of the Ryder house. It’s not bad at all, everything
is in good shape. It looks as if someone moved in yesterday. It’s very
impressive.”
When we entered the wooded land surrounding the house,
the temperature dropped fifteen degrees. Sunlight barely trickled through the
overhanging leaves. In fact, it seemed darker than usual. I hadn’t noticed, but
the trees were intimidating, covered with thick tangled vines and a deadly bark
blight.
“
There seems to
be something different about these trees today,” I said warily.
Virgil made a cursory glance out the car window. “Yeah,
a lot more walnut than I thought. Two of those trees could pay off the
balance.”
“But it wouldn’t be the same if the trees were gone,”
I said.
Virgil parked at the gate, stuck the car key in his
jacket pocket and waited for me to slide out. Slamming and locking the doors,
we paused
and stared
at
each other in
our borrowed suits with bulging pockets and old slouch hats
.
“Since you’re an old hand at this, I’ll defer the lead
to you,” he said.
I straddled the wall, allowing one leg to swing over,
wondering if it was going to come back in one piece. Virgil planted one hand
firmly atop the wall and swung both legs over, stumbling and crashing to his
knees on the other side.
“I made myself a promise,” he said getting up, “and
I’m going to keep it.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I’m going to make some changes in my life,” he vowed.
“From now on I’m going to live as if every day were the last and to hell with
the consequences.”
There seemed to be more at stake in this real estate
transaction than either of us realized. His attitude did not reinforce my
belief in a world of shining exactitude, but one of creeping paranoia, where
healthy minds gave up the struggle for sanity every day.
“Watch out for the dead birds,” I said. “There seems
to be a few more every day.”
“Phone Company must be spraying the lines from the air
with a new pesticide,” Virgil said.
His explanation was assuring, until I spotted two dead
moles at the base of a tree.
“You bring your piece?” I asked.
“Damn right,” he said. “I wouldn’t think of coming here
without it.”
The narrow indented trail to the house was becoming
a familiar path. I found comfort in the recognition of certain obstructions,
swollen flagstones, fallen tree limbs and rotting boughs. They signaled a
widening periphery of personal experience with the house.
I could hear Virgil following close behind,
but
breathing
heavily for one so accustomed to physical exertion. I waited for him to catch
up.
“Are you going to be all right?”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know. Maybe I have an
allergy, or there is something in the air. I feel like I’m climbing Everest.”
We continued, but his breathing became more labored.
He loosened buttons on his shirt. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t explain
it. I suggested he return to the car.