The Old Weird South
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Willie’s mother back in Iowa never saw her oldest boy again. He was a Plains boy, after all. Even in his right mind, he would have been bewildered by those woods and sloughs, creeks and thickets of northern Mississippi. Even natives sometimes lost themselves in that country and were never seen again. “Hogs got him” is what the locals would say. William Allen ran into the woods, and that was that.
The next morning, some people came, neighbors passing along down the track. Everybody was on the move. All the people in the country were packing up what little they had left. Winter was here, and they had nothing to eat. The lucky ones had kinfolks in Alabama or someplace where the Yankees hadn’t gone yet. The rest didn’t know where they were going or what they would eat tomorrow. People came by the house not long after daylight, and they stopped and they said, “Look at this!”
There was a Yankee army wagon in front of the house. Those poor mules still stood there in harness as they had all night. The door of the house stood wide open. People stopped, and they gathered, looked at the strangely troubling open door, and wondered what to do. Someone hailed the house. No one answered.
They got up their nerve, and they went up and looked in the door. They saw the blood. They saw what was in the bed. And they saw someone sitting there on the floor. Sitting there looking down through the trapdoor into the cellar hole.
A woman eased up to the figure on the floor, reached out, and touched her shoulder. “Sarah? Sarah girl! What happened? Where’s your mama? Sarah? Where’s your mama at, girl?”
Sarah didn’t answer. She just stared into the hole.
Some things never change. Great people make decisions. Little people pay the consequences.
Yankees in Georgia: Chasing Ghosts and the General along the Old W&A Railroad
Lewis Powell IV
Oh dear, Yankees in Georgia! How did they ever get in?
—Aunt Pittypat in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind
As you approach the General today, it almost feels like a living thing. Strategically placed speakers provide all the sounds a working engine would make. With its bright paint and polished brass, the massive locomotive hardly seems old, but it’s an iron horse that has seen a whirlwind of history in its 150 years.
As the General began chugging out of Atlanta’s Union Station at 4:00 am on April 12, 1862, toward Chattanooga, no one knew that this obscure locomotive was taking a ride into history and legend. That very day, the war had been going on for exactly a year, almost to the hour. A year earlier, the bombardment on Fort Sumter, a Union stronghold at the mouth of Charleston Harbor, had begun with a Confederate victory after nearly two days of shelling. The city of Atlanta, waking from its slumber, was too distracted by its morning bustle to notice the little engine’s departure.
That morning in 1862, as the General began making its way north with passengers and freight, a group of Yankees, selected from a variety of Ohio infantry companies, and two civilians began rising in their Marietta hotel, the Fletcher House, located next to the tracks just off the town square. Oddly, this group of soldiers on a military sortie was headed by a civilian: the mysterious (at least to historians) James J. Andrews of Kentucky. The motley group of soldiers, who had traveled in small groups into enemy territory in disguise, met in Andrews’ room to lay forth plans for the raid that was to take place in the next few hours. After dismissing the doubts of one of the higher-ranking soldiers in the group, Andrews concluded his orders by adamantly stating, “I will accomplish my purpose or leave my bones to bleach in Dixie.” With that benediction, the group boarded their train.
Marietta, once a small town some miles north of Atlanta, has now been caught in the fingers of Atlanta’s sprawl. The farms and plantations that existed between the cities have been replaced by highways and strip malls, though parts of Marietta’s town square still appear as James Andrews and his men would have seen it. This includes the massive Fletcher House, later called the Kennesaw House and now the home of the Marietta Museum of History. As well as housing artifacts, the old hotel also houses spirits, possibly in the hundreds.
The room where Andrews defined the day’s mission has been recreated, though the building has seen sweeping changes since its early days as a hotel. As with so many Georgia cities along the railroad, Marietta saw an influx of wounded Confederates as the war progressed. The Fletcher House was pressed into service as a hospital, and its halls and rooms that once rang with giggles of delight were filled with moans of pain and death. Following the war, the building resumed service as a hotel and has had a variety of uses over its history, but it is perhaps its wartime usage that resonates down into the twenty-first century.
Staff and visitors have had a variety of odd experiences within the halls of this hallowed edifice. Author Barbara Duffey, while attempting to photograph the building from the outside, remarked that she felt the “presence of many forces.” Later, when she began to glance around the second floor, she briefly was greeted by the scene of a Civil War–era surgery overseen by a bloody doctor standing over a patient. A male spirit, possibly the same doctor, has been spotted in the building as well. Even more amazing is a photograph taken by the museum’s director in 2003. He was shocked to see anomalies appear on the screen from a security camera. Grabbing his camera, he snapped a photo of the screen showing the stark white silhouette of a woman wearing period clothing. Some even speculate that James Andrews may be among the spirits walking the halls here, where he spent his last night in comfort.
After getting their orders for the mission, the group of twenty-one (two had not been awakened, having failed to pay the porter) left the comforts of the Fletcher House for the chilly train platform next door. The group spread out so as to not arouse the suspicion of other travelers. The General pulled in at 5:00 am, and the raiders boarded for their trip into history and, for some, oblivion.
Spread out among the passenger cars, this group quietly rode until their first stop.
An hour later, the call was heard. “Big Shanty! Twenty minutes for breakfast.”
The sun was rising upon Big Shanty, a diminutive settlement that consisted mostly of a depot and the large wood-frame two-story Lacy Hotel, which fronted the railroad. Across the tracks, the Confederate government had set up Camp McDonald for training new recruits. In a field of neat white tents, some seven thousand new Confederate troops were just getting up for a new day. Though armed only with pikes, the scene surely presented a jolt to the raiders, who were preparing to steal a locomotive right out from under their very noses.
Much to the relief of the Yankees, the train’s entire crew and all of its passengers disembarked for the warmth and hospitality of the Lacy Hotel. With an air of nonchalance, Andrews and his two railroad engineers climbed into the General’s cab and signaled to the others to take their places. The passenger cars were unhooked quietly, and the rest of the men boarded the three empty boxcars just behind the locomotive. The engine’s steam was raised, and within moments, they were off. From his table inside the Lacy Hotel, Conductor William Fuller spied the locomotive as it began to chug away from the station. Jumping up from the table, Fuller and two of his men began to run in pursuit of the escaped engine.
Standing in the shadow of Kennesaw Mountain, Big Shanty, now known as Kennesaw, sprawls leisurely along the I-75 corridor, which roughly parallels the old Western & Atlantic Railroad. The Lacy Hotel was burned by Sherman as he marched on Atlanta in 1864, while the depot has been replaced by a more modern building. However, the railroad tracks follow much the same course that they did in 1862. The theft of the General would not be the last major event here during this war.
As General Sherman began to cut a swath toward Atlanta in June of 1864, he was faced with heavy Confederate fortifications on Kennesaw Mountain. Sherman was forced to attack the Confederates head on, and he lost the battle with heavy casualties of nearly three thousand compared to the Confederates’ one thousand casualties. Though this defeat did not quell Sherman’s relentl
ess drive toward Atlanta, it did delay capture of the city and put Kennesaw on the map. The landscape around the mountain was left strewn with bodies, equipment, and spirits. The more important sections of the battlefield have been preserved, but other sections have been lost to Atlanta’s relentless progress. Some of the hallowed ground now sits under shopping malls, convenience stores, and housing developments, many of which are haunted as a result. One particular subdivision has had so much activity it was featured on television’s Unsolved Mysteries.
Visitors to terrain preserved by Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park have also had experiences with apparitions of those killed here. Some modern roads now crisscross the old farm fields that saw action, and it was along one of these roads a few years ago that a father and his son had an unusual experience. Late one evening, this pair was startled to see a figure on horseback dart in front of their car. The father slowed the car down, and they watched the figure, which they identified as a Union cavalry officer, as he crossed the road and right through a split rail fence on the opposite side before disappearing in the looming darkness.
The locomotive, now under Yankee control, sped away from Big Shanty with Conductor Fuller and two other men doggedly pursuing on foot. The Yankees paused briefly at Moon’s Station, not far from Big Shanty, and “borrowed” a claw bar from the work crew there. They proceeded at the usual speed of sixteen miles per hour and stopped again to check the engine and cut the telegraph wire. The train arrived in Acworth to the confusion of the passengers and crew waiting on the platform. It stopped only momentarily and then headed on toward the small village of Allatoona.
Allatoona Pass is very quiet today. Little remains of the town after most of it disappeared under the Lake Allatoona reservoir. The building of the reservoir led to the rerouting of the railroad, so now the only chugging in the pass comes from joggers or hikers, short of breath after climbing to see the remains of the earthen star forts that were built to protect this vital pass. Three forts were constructed: one on either side of the cut with a bridge between them and a larger fort overlooking the Etowah River. It was here that on October 5, 1864, after Atlanta’s fall, Confederate forces attacked the well-fortified pass. However, the attack was unsuccessful, and the Union soldiers retained control.
A few days after this action, a coffin arrived at the Allatoona depot. Inside was the body of a young Confederate soldier, though there was nothing else to identify the corpse. Some ladies of the town saw to it that the soldier was buried along the tracks just north of the pass under a stone that read An Unknown Hero. As trains continued to use the pass, crews and passengers reported seeing a young Confederate soldier running along the track near the lone grave. In the 1940s, when the tracks were rerouted due to the construction of Lake Allatoona, the grave was moved as well. The pass has since remained silent. Considered one of the most undisturbed battlefields in the country, the Allatoona Pass battlefield is now visited by tourists and the occasional spirit.
The Confederates, still chasing the General on foot, reached Moon’s Station, where the Yankees had borrowed the claw bar. After finding that the raiders had left some thirty minutes prior, the trio took a handcar. The trio dodged obstacles and missing rails in their pursuit before they were thrown off the line just north of the Allatoona Pass by a missing rail. Just across the Etowah River Bridge, a target that had not been destroyed by the raiders, Fuller and his men spotted the engine Yonah with a full head of steam at work at the Cooper’s Iron Works spur.
Andrews and his men had the chance to destroy the Yonah as they passed the spur, though in doing so, they would have attracted the attention of the employees working there. Instead, they passed quietly by, but they were not unnoticed. When Fuller arrived sometime later, the men were still confused by the earlier passage of the General with no passengers. Everything made sense when they were informed of the situation. The Yonah was hooked up to a flatcar with crossties, rails, and tools and sent north after its stolen sibling.
The Yankees left behind more astonished passengers as they passed the Cartersville depot and headed toward lonely Cass Station. Stopping at Cass Station to load up on wood and water, Andrews blithely plied the stationmaster with a tale of taking an emergency load of gunpowder north. With information on the recent Confederate defeats at Shiloh and Huntsville, the stationmaster believed the story, and the raiders continued toward Kingston, the largest rail yard between Atlanta and Chattanooga.
Now just a quiet small town, Kingston was a busy spot before and during the Civil War. Four large railroad sidings here allowed for trains to pass in opposite directions while the main line also met the spur to Rome, a city in West Georgia. It was here that Andrews had to be especially slick in dealing with the station employees and switchmen as well as other train conductors. Again, he spouted his tale of being an emergency gunpowder train. He was believed, though some did wonder why no corroboration came over the telegraph lines from the south. The General was directed to a siding while two trains from Chattanooga passed, and the locomotive resumed its northerly course with nary a soul in Kingston suspecting the boxcars were loaded with armed Yankees.
The Yonah pulled into Kingston a short while later, and Fuller took the speedier William R. Smith to continue the chase. The General had stopped just outside of Kingston to construct a barricade across the tracks and lifted another rail. But Andrews worried about keeping to the schedule to avoid unnecessary suspicion. After stopping again to cut the telegraph wires and obstruct the line, the General hurried forward, reaching speeds of nearly sixty miles per hour as the crew began burning oil in the locomotive’s firebox. They stopped in Adairsville and told the same lie about gunpowder before continuing toward Calhoun, where the racing train nearly collided with a train pulled by the Catoosa. After an angry encounter with the Catoosa’s crew, the raiders headed north, hoping to reach Chattanooga in good time.
The William R. Smith was slowed by the obstructions on the line but still made good time toward Adairsville. Two miles south of the city, it met the powerful southbound Texas, pulling a number of passenger cars. After relating to the conductor what had happened, the Texas was backed two miles to Adairsville. The passenger cars were put on a siding, but the engine could not be turned around. It was decided that the powerful engine could pursue the General just as fast backward as forward. The chase was on!
Just north of Calhoun, Andrews and his men paused again to cut the telegraph wires and lift another rail. As they worked, they were surprised to hear a train whistle approaching. The Texas came chugging around the bend backward. The men dropped the rail and boarded the stolen train. The General had not stopped again for fuel or water since Cass Station and was running low. A boxcar was quickly unhooked and left on the track to block the oncoming Texas, but after creeping over the loosened rail, the Texas was able to just hook up the loose boxcar and continue the chase.
The Yankee raiders in the final boxcar broke through the back wall and began tossing crossties onto the track. Unfortunately, given the speed of the train, many of these bounced off the rails. The second boxcar was also dropped, but again, it was coupled to the Texas, and the chase continued toward the covered Oostanaula River Bridge, another of the main targets of the raid. The bridge, soaked by days of rain, was too wet to set ablaze. Both engines sped north with the Yankees increasingly nervous about their pursuers. The General pulled into the small hamlet of Tilton, where it stopped briefly to load some wood in the tender and water into the engine, but with the Texas in hot pursuit, they were only able to load a small amount.
As the General sped through the rail yard at Dalton, the stunned telegrapher there notified Confederate authorities in Chattanooga of the situation. General Leadbetter quickly dispatched a train with soldiers south to create an ambush at Chickamauga. The chase led through the hamlet of Tunnel Hill, just south of the lengthy railroad tunnel through Chetoogeta Mountain. The General shot through the brick and limestone tunnel, leaving only smoke in its wake.
The Texas approached the tunnel with apprehension, fearing that the raiders may have left obstructions in the gloom. However, the Yankees were fleeing with such speed that nothing was done. The Texas passed through safely and picked up speed again. After passing through Ringgold, the weary crew on the General had exhausted their wood and was now throwing anything flammable into the firebox, including Andrews’ saddlebags. Around 12:30 pm, the General approached an uphill grade, and the engine ran out of steam. Andrews and his men scattered into the mountainous alien country exhausted, hungry, and defeated.
Word spread to farms and villages throughout the region that train thieves were on the loose. Locals charged into the mountains to find the “damn Yankees” and bring them to justice. Within days, all the raiders were in chains, and they were soon transferred to Chattanooga to stand trial. The raiders were incarcerated in an infamous hellhole called Swims Jail. The jail held prisoners on its sealed ground floor, which was accessible only by a trapdoor. In this squalid hole, all twenty-three raiders (the two who had overslept were also caught) were kept until trial. The Yankees stewed until May, when they were transported to Atlanta for trial on a train pulled by none other than the General.
Though the jail itself was torn down years ago, the site at the corner of Fifth and Lookout Streets still retains an air of negative energy. One ghost-tour guide has recorded a number of remarkable experiences at the site. Shadow figures have been seen darting about, and photographs taken in the area reveal orbs.
After quick trials, the raiders were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. As the leader, James Andrews was the first to be executed. He was taken to the Atlanta Graveyard and paraded before his hastily dug grave before stepping onto the gallows. When the platform dropped, the rope was too long, and his feet barely touched the ground while he strangled to death at the end of his rope. More than a week later, the Confederate authorities loaded seven more Yankees onto a cart bound for the same gallows. With a noose around his neck, George Wilson, an Ohio shoemaker, pleaded the group’s innocence, stating that they were only doing their duty as soldiers. His pleas went unheeded. The platform dropped and five necks broke; two of the ropes snapped, and the condemned were properly hanged an hour later. All their bodies were interred near the site. But with those eight deaths, the executions ended. Some of the remaining raiders had escaped, and the rest did not face the gallows.
The Atlanta Graveyard, now called Oakland Cemetery, swelled with Confederate dead during the war. Its heart, rank upon rank of simple stones, is haunted by those who eternally sleep there. Shadowy figures have been spotted among the graves, quite possibly the spirits of the eight men who were executed here. Near the huge stone lion representing the dying Confederacy, some have heard a voice intoning the names of the dead—an eternal roll call. However, the raiders no longer lie here. Their bodies were returned to Chattanooga, where they were buried at the National Cemetery.
Under a monument topped with their prize—a marble statue of the General—Andrews and seven of his men sleep. Legend tells that during a full moon, the marble train leaves its position and chugs through the cemetery. The actual General, after many trips around the country, now resides in the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw. The building, next to the modern CSX railroad tracks, is located just yards from where the engine began its ride into legend. Museum staff have reported that even now, 150 years later, the shades of the raiders still linger about the engine, recalling the Great Locomotive Chase.
A Hunnerd Dollars, Gold
Peter Mehren
“When I heard the new recruits being taught how to do the Rebel Yell, I was truly frightened. How quickly they all joined in and how enthusiastic and savage—prehuman—it sounded. I was reminded of what the Duke of Wellington said when one of his officers asked if he thought the rough British soldiers at Waterloo would frighten Napoleon and his troops—‘I do not know what they’ll do to the enemy, but by God, they frighten me!’
“And I knew that as the wealthy son of an even wealthier planter, I’d be made an officer . . . and I knew that I lack the character to control them. I’m not leadership material. At which point, the agent selling substitutes set up his table with you and the others seated on the ground around him. I bought my way out by purchasing your services for a hundred dollars, five twenty-dollar United States of America gold pieces.”
“He only gave me four, sir.”
“That seems an excessive commission, 20 percent.”
“And worse than that, sir, when he sent it to my wife, she got only sixty. And the bank in our village charged her ten more to change it to Confederate dollars. So the way I figure it, sir, you owe her fifty dollars, Confederate or Yankee, sir, for my having died instead of you, sir.”
“And that’s why you’re haunting me?”
“It seems so, sir. That and burying me properly, sir.”
“But you know we’re on our way to California right now, don’t you? Hundreds of miles from Alabama.”
“You may be, sir. But I’m just with you, wherever you are. I know nothing else, sir—where we are, how we got here, why or how I found you, why I can’t leave you, sir.”
That night, while dining alone, Swain was approached by an attractive but slightly used lady. He invited her to join him for a nightcap. She wanted champagne but agreed to settle for a simple red wine. After which, of course, they retired to Swain’s room in the hotel, the desk clerk smiling at the dollar Swain put on his counter before he and his lady of the night ascended.
But only a few minutes later, she screamed in terror and pushed Swain off. “What’s that!” she shouted as she leapt from the bed and ran, naked, to the door and out into the hall.
Swain had glanced over his shoulder to see whatever she was pointing at and had glimpsed, ere it faded, a floating face between him and the room’s ceiling, with wide-open eyes, pulled-back lips, and an evil look somewhere between a smile and a snarl. And then it, like the female, was gone.
“Did you do that?” Swain said.
Faintly, he heard, “Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“Be alert, sir. Why I know things, I do not understand. But in a moment, your door would have been broken open by a huge and nasty man, claiming to be her husband and robbing you of all your possessions at gunpoint.”
“Am I safe now?”
“I would urge you to return to the lobby after packing whatever you’ve taken out of your portmanteau, sir, and spend the night there, perhaps with the pistol from your suitcase held instead in a coat pocket for ease of use, sir.”
And so Swain spent the night seated, drinking coffee and fighting sleep. He could rest in the stagecoach as he continued his westward journey.
But as Swain and his ghostly fellow traveler crossed Texas, he was again warned. The voice spoke to him as he entered a wayside hotel restaurant. “Sir, try to be inconspicuous. Do not engage in conversation with anyone, I urge you.”
Nonetheless, as he sat alone, eating, two rough men approached him. One said, “You look mighty fancy. You’re not from here, are you?”
Swain smiled slightly and shook his head.
“Nothing to say?”
“Just passing through.” And he heard a sigh.
“That accent—you’re a Southerner, aren’t you?”
Swain nodded in the affirmative, almost imperceptibly.
“Why aren’t you in the army?”
“I’m not mad at anyone. That’s why I’m heading west.”
“Well, I’m mad at you.” And the pair took another step toward Swain . . . at which point, the wine bottle on Swain’s table rose into the air and moved toward the head of one of the villains. Both of them gasped and scurried backward, and then they turned and bumped into each other as they tried to get out of the restaurant’s door.
“That’s three, sir. And I assure you, it is not easy lifting anything, particularly something so heavy, sir.”
“So it was you?”
“Did you imagine otherwise, sir?”
“No, I suppose not. And what did you mean by ‘That’s three’?”
“I’ve saved your life three times now.”
“And what should I do now?”
“Catch the night coach, sir, rather than sleeping here and risking their wrath tomorrow morning.”
And as the coach rumbled westward, its jostling making sleep impossible, Swain inhaled to begin to speak and immediately heard, “Yes, sir, I am here.”
“You can read my mind, my thoughts.”
“Yes, sir, that seems to be the situation. And you may be aware—you are not exactly hearing me with your ears. My words are directly in your mind.”
“My imagination?”
“No, sir. Then you’d be mad. No, sir, in your mind.”
“But you can appear, like to the . . . lady and, in a way, to the thugs.”
“And I can even muster sounds—a few words, sir—if necessary. But all of this is difficult, sir. And I confess, I have no idea how I do it, when I know it must be done. Could you please turn around, sir?”
“You mean in my seat?”
“No, sir. I mean, could you return to Alabama, to pay my wife and perhaps even find my remains? I know that you are carrying a great deal of money sewn into the lining of your portmanteau, sir.”
“I sold my property, including my workers, so I could leave the South until the war is over.”
“But you are going to have bad luck—and I assure you, that it is not my doing, sir! Bad luck because you have abandoned your home, your people, your responsibilities. I make no judgment myself, sir. But I am aware of this fact, this situation, sir.”
“How are you aware? How did you know of the dangers from which you protected me?”
“What I know is that I was on a field that would have been a pleasant place, except for the young men running at each other with fixed bayonets. Sir, it was terrible! I was frightened, more frightened than ever I have been—and frightened of being frightened, of running or hiding, of being punished—and frightened of being hurt so far from home, from my wife, sir.
“And then I felt as though I’d been kicked by a mule. Have you ever been kicked by a mule, sir?”
“By a horse, once.”
“Horse, mule—close enough. Then you know, sir, how it hurts, how it prevents one from being able to move.”
“Yes. It took me several days—”
“Yes, sir. Well, it didn’t give me that opportunity. Because as I lay dying, I looked down at my chest, and blood was pouring from it. And I—oh, it sounds foolish now—I put a finger into the hole, the bullet hole, to try to stop the blood the way one might put a finger into a hole in a broken cup, sir.
“But the blood did not stop. And my vision began to fade, and the brightness of the day darkened, and the noise of the gunshots and the screams of rage and pain and self-deception faded in my ears, sir. And I crawled toward a tree, thinking that somehow I would be safe there.
“And suddenly, everything stopped. Everything was dark, black, sir. But as suddenly, everything was bright beyond belief, as bright as the brightest flash of lightning, sir, but it didn’t fade as does lightning, sir. It was and remains—my vision, my world—as bright as lightning. And this confused me even more, sir—at the same time, I could see several distinct images, rather like when there are several people speaking at the same time and you can hear bits of all of the words, sir. But here, I could see, somehow at the same moment, my body as I seemed to float up from it and the Yankee boy who’d shot me, and I saw that he was just loading his weapon and pointing it in the general direction of my fellows, not aiming, not trying to hit anyone, leaving the bullet’s destination to fate.
“And I saw, sir, my wife, my widow, suddenly sit up in our—her—bed and scream my name.
“And I saw you, sir, handing the five gold pieces to that agent man on the porch.
“And I not merely have seen such things. I understand them. I understand life, its meaning, more than I could have imagined an ignorant farm boy understanding everything. And I can speak more clearly, with the right words that seem to come to me easily.
“Please, sir, help my wife—my widow. Please return and find her and help her. Give her her money, sir, please.”
And so Swain caught a stagecoach heading east. He and the driver and the guard and other passengers rode silently for two days and nights, stopping only to eat and relieve themselves. And then Swain heard, “Sir, you need not worry about my body, my earthly remains.”
“No, I’ll do what I can if you but tell me where—”
“No, sir. It’s not necessary. Although animals ate part of my body, good people went to the battlefield and buried the remains, albeit not knowing our names, and a clergyman prayed over the grave, the huge hole containing young men from both sides.”
And Swain shivered as he heard, from a distance, the Rebel Yell but in a minor key, the faint moaning of lost souls gone from their homes, gone from their people, gone from life.
And he heard weeping and knew enough not to say any more.
Days later, they approached a village. “Here, sir. Please get off here.”
He did. And he stood in the small settlement, holding his suitcase.
An elderly man approached him, followed by an equally elderly woman. They looked at him. He waited for either to speak; then he said, “I’m looking for—” And as he realized he did not know her name, he heard, “Elizabeth,” and he said it aloud.
“How do you know her?” asked the unsmiling man.
“I’m a friend of her husband.”
“Which one? Which husband?”
Swain heard a groan, and evidently, so did the old couple.
“Her first.”
“What was his name?”
Again, Swain paused momentarily, then, responding to the ghost’s voice in his mind, said, “Jesse.”
Then, hearing another whisper, he continued, “Drummond. Jesse Drummond.”
They led him to the farm of the parents of her second husband, Jacob George. “Don’t think about shakin’ hands with him,” the old man rasped on the way. “He lost his right arm fightin’ the Yanks.”
And Elizabeth and Jacob looked at him with suspicion. But he slowly held out his clenched fist, which contained three U.S. twenty-dollar gold coins. He handed them to Elizabeth.
“He saved my life. He meant to send you, Mrs. George, a hundred dollars, what he was paid, but you got only fifty. Here’s sixty. The extra ten is my gift to you.”
“They’re Yankee,” Jacob muttered.
“However the war turns out, they’ll be good someday. Either the Union wins, and they’re legal tender again, or we win, and we’ll trade with ’em like we do with England and Mexico now.”
Jacob looked sternly at Swain and held his hand out beneath Elizabeth’s. She dropped the coins onto his open palm. “I’m gonna hide ’em,” he said and walked away. “You all stay right here.”
When he was out of sight and the old couple was seated on a porch, smoking pipes, Swain took a knotted handkerchief out of his co
at pocket and handed it to Elizabeth. “Your husband, Jesse, saved my life at least three times. There’s two hundred more dollars in this handkerchief. I don’t mean to sound rude, but perhaps you should hide this until you need it.”
Eyes wide in amazement, she quickly tucked it in a pocket of her dress.
“I’ll go now,” said Swain. “Hide it.”
She nodded, and Swain turned and walked away.
“Thank you, sir,” Swain heard. It was not just Elizabeth’s voice, but also that of his ghostly companion.
As Swain walked back toward the road, hoping to find another stage to take him east or west, he heard, “I’ll stay here with her, sir. With them. Of course, I’ll sleep in the barn . . . stay in the barn, except to help ’em. I don’t want to see—”
“I understand. An excellent idea. You’ll be like a guardian angel.”
“Yes, sir. And I want to say, if I could be in two places at once, I’d want to protect you too, sir. ’Cause I imagine that you’ll keep on needing help. Failing my presence, sir, please go cautiously, wherever you go. I’ll always be grateful, sir.”
“Perhaps we’ll meet again somewhere, on this side or where you are.”
“Perhaps, sir.”
And Swain suddenly heard the faintest swishing sound and felt an emptiness—an emptiness that stayed with him for the rest of his life.
The South, Rise Again
DL Thurston
Another day and Hamilton Dunham was still in Pittsburg Landing. He woke to the late fall sun filtering through the barren branches overhead. Elihu was already gone, driven by the energy of the young. Dunham needed more time to get moving. His bones and joints reminded him of how old he was. Elihu’s energy twisted that knife further. Digging through ruined battlefields was a young man’s game; it needed someone like Elihu. Shame he wasn’t the right man for the work.
He’d woken the last few mornings nearly as exhausted as when he’d gone to sleep the night before. He trusted a breakfast of sooty coffee and hardtack to sustain him until lunch and set out into the Shiloh battlefield. Three days among the dead of Shiloh and he didn’t reckon he was more than a third finished. The mornings were getting colder, crisper. It might almost be pleasant if he were here for any other reason than breathing life to the long dead. Greycoat dead. Edmund Whitman made sure of that earlier that summer, taking the honored Union dead off to the new federal cemetery. Whitman had federal support, federal money, federal help. He didn’t have anyone like Hamilton Dunham. He didn’t have a resurrectionist.
Dunham made mental notes of each body he passed as he picked through the trees. That rock was actually a skull. That exposed root was actually a rib. He found Elihu crouched next to Tillman Creek, with a map spread out on a rock. The younger man added his own notations, tracking the retreat of Maj. Gen. Braxton Bragg and his men.
“We went further east,” Elihu said. “There was a redoubt here. It ain’t anymore. Couldn’t go through it. We went around. There’s men dead out there.” He tapped a spot on the map then pointed through the woods, well outside where Dunham was planning to look.
“You sure?”
“Lost a good buddy nearly at Owl Creek there.”
“Then we’ll start there today.”
The maps were all based on secondhand stories and questionable after-action reports. It was invaluable to have an assistant who was in the battle. Elihu pulled his old grey uniform jacket tight against the chilly wind and took the lead toward Owl Creek. His memory was dead on. By the banks was a skirmish site that the maps forgot and Whitman missed. Blue coats mixed with grey, muddied, and one from the other barely distinguishable. Dunham found a body with captain’s bars and carefully turned it over. There was little left of the captain, bones roughly held together by fetid bits of muscle, cloth and mummified skin rotted into one.
“Ready?” Dunham asked.
Elihu swallowed some bile. “No. But go.”
Dunham took a deep breath and put his hands on either side of the captain’s head. He closed his eyes and concentrated, pushing a little bit of himself into the felled officer. The battle was so long ago; some men were too far gone. The rest were so long dead that waking them wasn’t enough. Dunham needed to undo what time had done. Muscle and skin twisted back into place, loosely covering bone. The captain twitched and twisted before taking in a sharp rasping breath and then coughing out stale air that stank of mold. The captain’s left eye was long lost to time, and the right rolled blindly in its socket. Dunham couldn’t undo nearly so much rot as that, not with how painful tired he was.
“Can you hear me, captain?”
“Who’s there?” His voice pushed past a rotted tongue and out a grim lipless smile, but his accent still held the French notes of a bayou accent.
“My name is Hamilton Dunham. We don’t have much time. What was your name?”
“How are my men?”
“I’d like to find out, but I need to know your name.”
“Chauncey Booream, Seventeenth Louisiana.”
Dunham looked up at Elihu, who diligently wrote down every word in a yellowed journal. He returned his attention to Captain Booream. “Do you have any messages for your family?”
“My . . . my family? Am I not going to make it?”
“I’m afraid you already didn’t, Captain.”
“What? I don’t understand.” Captain Booream tried to lift his arm but left most of it on the forest floor, buried in rotting leaves.
“Is there any message you want sent?”
“Find my boy, find Benji. Tell him his daddy’s proud of him. Tell him to take care of his momma. Tell him we’re going to win this war.”
Captain Booream coughed again. His chest collapsed with the force, and he screamed in pain. Dunham placed a hand on the man’s forehead. “Rest now, Captain. You’ll be home in Louisiana soon.”
Booream went limp, and he slipped away again into death. Skin retreated, muscle melted away. Dunham let him settle back into the ground. Elihu’s pen still scratched over the paper. Dunham stood, his knees popping and groaning. The younger man was charting the area, marking the body of Captain Booream for a later team to recover and repatriate his remains. Dunham surveyed the field, looking over the work ahead of them, and prepared for a long day. He moved to the next man and the next, collecting names, gathering statements, each dutifully transcribed by his young assistant. Some bodies they could identify from personal effects; too many required Dunham’s special touch. Each fallen soldier had his position plotted and marked, a map of the death of Shiloh emerging on the pages the two men carried with them. Dunham even checked the bluecoats they found. Whitman may not have shown the fallen Confederates such care, but that didn’t mean Dunham had to sink to the same discourtesy.
As they stopped for lunch, Dunham felt the fatigue of the day seeping into his bones. These days got longer, harder. His methods left his mind and body so absolutely spent.
But it was good work. That’s what kept him going.
“Mr. Dunham?”
He put his spoon down, welcoming a reason to stop eating. His meal of beans, cooked twice too often, and a scrap of cured jerky, a little more appetizing than shoe leather, could wait. “Yeah?”
“How come you never ask them where they’ve been?”
“They’ve been right here. Dead don’t go nowhere unless someone moves them.”
“That ain’t what I meant.”
Dunham took another bite of the mushy beans. “I guess it wasn’t.”
“Then why? They’ve been to the other side. They know what’s out there. They’ve been to the pearly gates, gotten their reward.”
“Have they?”
“You don’t believe?”
“Let’s say I’d rather not know.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
Dunham put his spoon down again. “Ever been reading a book? Want to know real bad how it ends?”
“Yeah.”
“Ever turn to the end and find out?
”
Elihu considered the question. “This is different.”
Dunham shook his head. “Ain’t no difference. I’d prefer not know how this book ends. Not till it’s my time to find out for sure.”
Elihu let him finish his meager lunch in peace and kept quiet as they worked their way through the dead of the Seventeenth Louisiana, the Twenty-Third Alabama, and even an officer of the First Arkansas. Dunham considered reprising the conversation but welcomed the silence. It was less worry as he was forced deeper and deeper into his own mind, resurrecting the dead one by one. Some couldn’t say but a few words. Others Dunham quieted. Shadows lengthened, and what little warmth the day imparted slipped into an early evening. Dunham’s breath now came in clouds. He wanted to wrap up the day and come back to Owl Creek tomorrow. It was then that Elihu broke his silence.
“Butler!”
Elihu scrambled into the deep shadows, leaving the bone-tired Dunham to follow. He found the young Confederate hunched down, cradling a decomposed body, its head resting in his lap. He looked up as Dunham neared. “This is Butler Markell. We mustered up together. I remember when he fell. Knew I’d have to tell his momma.”
Dunham rubbed his sore neck. “I’ll give you some space.”
“Wait.”
Dunham turned back.
“Aren’t you going to . . . you know.”
“That’s for the bodies we can’t identify.”
“Please. Just a few minutes.”
Elihu had been so much help scouring the battlefield. Even as Dunham’s body said it wasn’t in him, he knew he owed something to the young greycoat. Dunham knelt down and focused on waking the dead Markell. The resurrectionist’s heart fluttered, and his brain screamed. The body jerked and coughed as Butler Markell came back after so many years dead. He looked around with missing eyes. The recovered skin on his face was stretched tautly; muscles and tendons hung loose about his body, but still, Elihu looked at him with the love engendered by brotherhood in arms. Dunham straightened, his pains grown worse, how they tore at his very essence. He patted Elihu on the shoulder and gave the younger man some privacy. Bits of the conversation floated through the bare trees as he limped toward the campsite, each tree a crutch. The farther he went, the thinner he felt, until he reached his limit and readied a forced campsite.
Dunham lit a fresh fire and set in for a dinner that was equal parts unsatisfying and filling. Somewhere in the dark, he felt Markell slip away again, releasing what bits of Dunham he held on to. Dunham rolled a cigarette, smoked it down, and was halfway through a second before Elihu came through the trees and settled in beside the fire. The sun was long gone; the night was now cold and dark with the twinkle of stars overhead. Elihu sat quietly and stared into the fire, saying nothing.
“You asked, didn’t you?”
Elihu wouldn’t make eye contact.
“He didn’t have an answer, did he?”
“You listened?”
Dunham took another drag from his cigarette then flicked the butt into the fire. He rolled another. “Want one?”
Elihu held out a shaking hand. He clenched the cigarette hard between his teeth, not smoking it, just letting it burn.
“You’ve asked, haven’t you?”
“No.” Dunham rubbed the bridge of his nose. “But I know folks who have. Most people do. They always say the same thing.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’ve told people before. They never believe me, always have to ask for themselves.” Dunham lit his new cigarette. “I guess I thought I’d try something different. See if I could get you to not be so damned curious.”
Elihu’s cigarette smoldered between his fingers. “Does that mean there’s nothing?”
Dunham considered his cigarette and replied, “Means no one knows when they come back. I think we ain’t meant to know, not till we get there.”
“Goddamn.”
“Pretty much.”
Elihu held his cigarette in his left hand and stared at it hard. The cigarette dropped to the ground; Elihu moved his fingers, watched them. Dunham could feel the exhaustion coursing through his body. He was so close to sleep now.
“Mr. Dunham?” Elihu’s voice was distant now.
“Yeah?”
“How’d we do?”
“South surrendered about eighteen months ago.”
“Damn.”
“Sorry. You’ve been a real help.”
“Are you sending me back now?”
Dunham wiped some sweat from his brow. “I’ve kept you as long as I can.”
Elihu finally looked at Dunham. “I don’t remember anything.”
“They never do.”
He was losing his focus. It had been a long few days. Tomorrow, he’d work alone, and then he’d find another assistant.
“Mr. Dunham?”
“Yeah?”
“You’ll make sure I get home?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Thanks.”
Dunham felt Elihu slipping away. He couldn’t stop it now. Elihu lay down.
“Mr. Dunham?”
“No more questions now.”
Dunham took a deep breath and let go. Elihu’s body crumpled as he let out one last breath. It was a weight off Dunham’s soul but not a relief. He laid out his bedroll alongside the fire and settled in for a sleepless night.
The Dragon and the Shark
David Boop
1868
It didn’t take a genius to know Sebastian Maher would lose the hand if he called the fifty-dollar bet. The person sitting across the felt from him was too confident, and while Maher’s cards were good, they weren’t that good. Problem was he’d let himself be goaded into betting his entire stack on the two cards he had swapped out. They’d been the cards he wanted, but whatever his nemesis had drawn must have been better. The cowpoke glowed like a streetlight in New Orleans.
This left Maher with two choices: bow out gracefully and try to start over from the last fifty-dollar bill secured in his boot . . . or cheat. Seeing as their riverboat would dock at Memphis in just under an hour, cheating seemed the best course of action.
Maher apologized. “I’m sorry, but I do believe you have me at a disadvantage, sir. I can tell from the way you just cannot contain your enthusiasm that you must have received something special from that last exchange of cards.”
“Believe what you want, dandy,” his slack-jawed opponent said. “Yer gonna have to pay to see if yer right.”
The term dandy had been thrown at him before, as if it meant he preferred the company of men or something to that effect. Maher considered himself a gentleman—educated at better schools, bred from better stock. If the cretins south of Saint Louis couldn’t tell the difference between a true man of the world and a poof, that was their ignorance.
“Sir, since you’re going to take me for all my winnings, then please indulge me a chance to tell you a tale before I have to leave the table. It won’t take long, and you might find it fascinating.”
The cowpoke, a man who hadn’t seen a lick of soap in months, grimaced. “What does indulge mean?”
“It means grant me a favor, a boon, if you will.” Maher waved his hand in a simple gesture of penitence.
“What does a boo—”
“I want to tell you a story.”
Maher wondered what ancient god he must have offended to draw only a full house against such a buffoon.
“You tell yer story, then I git all yer money?”
The gambler nodded.
“Fine. Tell yer story. But if I smell any sort of trick, I’ll shoot ya where ya stand.” The cowpoke placed his gun on top of his cards to emphasize the point.
They were both sitting, but not wanting to play semantics, Maher let the lapse in grammar pass.
Leaning back in his chair, the gambler made sure all eyes were on him as he spoke. He’d done a bit of theatrical training and knew how to capture a crowd.
“A long time ago
—a couple hundred years, truth be told—seven men sought the Mississippi River in hopes that it’d lead them to the Pacific Ocean.”
A man who’d folded early in the game interrupted, “I know this one. That was them Lewis and Clark fellas.”
“Not quite,” corrected the gambler. “This was before them. It was led by a French missionary, Jacques Marquette, and a fur trader named Jolliet.”
The assembled men and waitresses spat on the floor at the word French. They waited to see what Maher would do, a test of his allegiances.
“Oh yes. I forgot.” He made a spitting attempt at the floor. “Fuck the French.”
That satisfied everyone around him, so he continued. “After they passed the Straits of Mackinac, they encountered a savage tribe of natives. The Illini were fierce warriors, but having encountered other servants of God before, they did not attack the father and his group. Instead, they passed on a warning.”
“What type of warning?” asked another player, the one who’d folded last, leaving just Maher and his cowboy opponent. The man swallowed hard, waiting for the answer.
Maher obliged. “They warned the men of a winged beast that would devour whole anyone who dared travel near its nest.”
“Git out,” said the cowpoke. “Ain’t no bird that big in the territories. We’d heard of that by now.”
Maher shook a finger at him. “No, sir. This was no bird, but an ancient beast still alive from the dawn of man. A monster left over from the flood that had managed to escape doom and flew above the waves, through the rain, and survived to find land after the waters subsided. It was a creature whose only kin might be the great Leviathan that gobbled Jonah up whole.”
Eyes widened, and a few men crossed themselves.
“The good father and the trapper ignored the warning and continued on. It wasn’t even three days southbound on the Mississippi until they saw them.”
“T-them?” asked the early folder.
“Yes, two of them.” Maher used hushed tones as he spoke. “A male and female. They were high on a bluff, overlooking the mighty Miss. They were horrible winged demons with feathers of yellow and green and red and black.”
Seeing as he had his audience enthralled, the gambler recited the legend as it’d been told him. “They were as large as young cattle with horns on their heads like those of a deer. Red eyes glared down at them. Each had a beard like a tiger’s, one a horrible mannish face, the other a hideous lady’s. A long tail that wound all around the bodies, passed above their heads and going back between their legs, ending in fish’s tails.”
He could see by the shifting of eyes that everyone tried to envision what Father Marquette witnessed.
“The female creature spotted the craft in the water and swooped down to snatch one of the oarsmen from the canoe. Screaming, he was carried back to the nest, where the mates ripped him apart to serve as breakfast for the winged monster’s brood, who, incidentally, were just starting to hatch from their eggs.”
Maher took off his hat and pressed it against his chest. He bowed his head in reverence, and all did the same. In that moment, Maher quickly switched one of his pair cards with a sleeve card, giving himself four of a kind.
“Deciding they would grab some lunch too, the male started his descent toward the expedition. The remaining men were ready, as was the father who held the Holy Book aloft and prayed for divine intervention. A rain of bullets filled the air between them and the beast. Most bounced off its thick hide, but one, guided by God himself, hit the creature in the eye, where it entered the brain, killing it. It dropped in the big river, and the splash nearly capsized their canoe. Enraged, the female monstrosity dove at the crew, vengeance in her angry red eyes. Trapper Jolliet, seeing a shadow in the water, paddled their canoe quickly over it. When he said the word, all jumped out of the boat as the winged demon crashed into it. Below, a large rock sat waiting. The creature broke its neck and floated to the surface.”
Everyone drew a breath of relief. Maher waited for the question someone would eventually ask.
“What happened to those babies?”
“The expedition climbed up the bluff and slew each and every one of them. The end.”
There was a round of clapping.
“In honor of your allowing me that reprieve, I will pay to see your cards.” Maher reached down and pulled out his last fifty to match the bet. “Call. Let’s see how badly I am undone.”
The cowpoke returned his mind to the game, having been completely drawn in by the tale. “Um, yeah. Well, I’ve got a straight flush.” He flipped over a seven to jack straight, all of the club variety.
“Oh dear. That is an almost unbeatable hand.”
The cowpoke grinned and reached for the pot.
“However, I was sure you had a royal flush when I spoke. I do, indeed, have you beat. Good thing I didn’t fold.”
Maher flipped over his four queens. The crowd whooped at his success, all save for the cowpoke, who looked angrily at the gambler.
“Yer a goddam cheat, that’s what ya are! Ya done distracted us and did some sort of switch.” He lifted his gun to aim it at Maher.
“Now, now, kind sir. There were witnesses here. I count a dozen men who stared at me the whole time. When could I have pulled some sort of ruse? At what point did anyone not gaze with rapt attention at me?” He scanned the crowd. “Who saw me touch my cards? Anyone?”
No one answered. No one spoke up. That seemed to anger the cowpoke even more.
“I had ya beat. Ya knows it, and I knows it.”
“Well then,” said Maher, holding up his hands, “we seem to be at a bit of an impasse. What would you suggest to settle this like men?”
“I suggest I kill you and take my winnings.”
“I have a better idea. How about we go up on deck and stage one of those gunfights your breed love so much?”
This brought a round of laughter from the crowd. None would have bet on the gambler to be able to even hold a gun.
The cowpoke laughed too. “Okay. Let’s do it yer way. Ya own a gun?”
“Oh, I’m fine. You bring yours, and I’ll bring my own weapon.” The gambler reached into his sleeve and pulled out a whistle.
This brought more laughter. The cowpoke looked at the small silver object.
“Yer gonna beat me with that?”
Maher nodded. “Shall we be off?” To the dealer, he said, “Please collect the pot and store it until one of us returns.”
The deck of the steamboat had enough space for five paces. Both men agreed that would be enough. They stood back-to-back and started counting off. Maher placed the whistle in his mouth and blew it once for each step. On the fifth step, he blew it long and hard.
The cowpoke spun and drew. His finger slid into place, but he never got the chance to pull the trigger before he was lifted off the deck by a creature from nightmares. It had feathers the color of yellow and green and red and black. Its face, a hideous distortion of a woman’s, bit down on the cowpoke as she dragged him skyward. His scream was cut short as his body was swallowed whole. The creature disappeared into the night sky before anyone blinked.
“Oh,” said Maher as he took in the crowd, “I left off one part of the story. You see, there were two Piasa eggs that hadn’t hatched yet.” He leaned conspiratorially toward one of the passengers. “Piasa being the Illini Indians’ name for the creatures.”
Maher straightened back up and continued. “Trapper Jolliet took them and kept them warm, wrapped in pelts. When they hatched, he raised them and trained them. He headed south and hid among the people of Mexico. There, he kept the Piasas, now known as Quetzalcoatls, safe, and with each generation, the oldest male of his line is given a chick to raise as his own personal guardian. Interesting story, right?”
The riverboat passengers nodded.
“Well, looks as if we’re getting close to dock. If you all don’t mind, I’m going to collect my winnings and catch the next ferry to Little Rock. I hope to make the Ariz
ona Territory in a week. I’m sure I can trust everyone to keep mum about this, right?” He tapped the whistle still sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Again, everyone nodded.
“Thank you all very much for your support. There’s a copper mine opened near Drowned Horse, and I expect there will be a card game set up at the local watering hole. Feel free to join me anytime.” But he doubted any of the passengers would. If anything, none of them would ever come close to the territory, and that was just dandy with him.
Matty and the Grey Man
Lara Ek
There was five of us till Pappa caught the pneumonia, an then after, there was only four of us, an Mamma had a hard time of it. Starting us turning sixteen she was fixing for us to get married, since no seamstress couldn’t hold up three girls an herself on a widow woman’s leavings, but there never came nothing of it till Josie, the oldest of us, turned eighteen. That day noon, a big black motorcar come rolling up the road and stopped right in front of our house.
Well, Mamma went out the door to see, an me an my sisters went to the window. Out that car got a tall man in a right smart suit, bald an with a pale, pale face an round dark glasses up against his eyes. Tie grey, suit grey, shirt white, shoes with grey wingtips, pale wood cane wrapped in a white leather handle. He held that tight in his hands as he spoke to our mamma.
Then Mamma turned right round an hustled back inside, busting through the door an crying, “Girls, put on your best an wait in the parlor! Here’s Mr. Smith looking to marry a one of you!” An out that window, the grey man looked at us.
Well, we puts on our best and goes down to the parlor an lines up on that couch, whispering who Mr. Smith might be an how an why. An when he come to the door, we all went silent.
“Ms. Josie,” said Mr. Smith. “I want you.”
“To talk to you on marriage,” Mamma says, coming in behind him, an Mr. Smith don’t nod nor shake his head—just watched Josie through them round glasses. “Hurry out now,” Mamma says to us two young ones, an we gets up an walks out, an the door shuts quiet behind us.
Well, Josie was a pretty girl, sweet as a kitten an quiet as an old mule, an Mr. Smith was a mining man—got plenty of money but no young wife to share it with—an so you already know how that turned out. Mamma said yes, an Josie said yes, an Mr. Smith said nothing but “I’ll send money for the wedding dress” an walked out. That wedding was held a week after, an Mr. Smith arrived just fore noon; an he stood in the ceremony, set at the table after, then stood an told Josie, “Wait for me at the gate in a week.”
An in a week, Josie met Mr. Smith at the gate, an Mr. Smith drove up in that big black motorcar an took Josie away.
Josie sent one letter. Then we heard nothing no more.
Well, a year later, it was Sadie’s birthday when she turned eighteen. An noon that day, there’s a big black motorcar comes rolling up the road an stop right in front of our house, an it’s Mr. Smith—grey suit, grey tie, pale wood cane with a white leather grip. Mr. Smith got out of that car an come to the door an met Mamma an talked to her, an finally, Mamma come back in an told us, “You girls best put on your clothes an wait in the parlor. Mr. Smith says Josie got lost in the woods, an he’s looking to marry again.”
So we puts on our best an waits in the parlour; an pretty soon, the door opens, an there’s Mr. Smith. He looks us over slow.
“Ms. Sadie,” he says to my sister. “I want you.”
“Wants to talk to you on marriage,” Mamma says, coming in behind him, an Sadie gets up an curtseys, an Mamma hushes me out of the room.
An Sadie married him, sure enough, though Mamma didn’t like it none. But he had the money, an he was awful sorry about Josie, so she shut her mouth an let Sadie off. They had their wedding, though the neighbors was jawing on about it something fierce, about where was Josie an why hadn’t there been no funeral. Mr. Smith didn’t take no mind—just told Sadie, “Wait for me at the gate a week from now.” An Sadie dressed up in that wedding dress and did.
An that day, noon, Mr. Smith come up in his big black motorcar an took Sadie off.
She sent one letter, an then we never heard from her no more.
But I was seventeen by this time, an by the time one year rolls around, I turn eighteen. An that day I did, Mr. Smith showed up again—wearing them same clothes, holding that same cane—an I knowed he come for me. But I set quiet on the parlor couch an waited while Mamma talked to him, an I waited for that moment Mr. Smith showed up at the door an said, “Ms. Matty, I want you.”
I stood up, an I said, “Yes, Mr. Smith.”
The wedding was a week after, an when the day of it come, Mamma says, “You don’t have to, Matty. You can turn right round an leave this man.” I tell Mamma I need to find out where’s Josie an Sadie, an she says, “Well then, just remember, he got some kinda charms, knowing your birthdays an coming for all three of you. You just watch he don’t use ’em on you.”
“Oh, he got no charms, Mamma,” I says. “He’s just uncommon clever. I’ll find you Josie an Sadie, an I’ll bring them right back no matter what he done.”
An so I married Mr. Smith, though it weren’t much of a wedding, being hardly any neighbors there an none for his side. He come to the ceremony just in time an barely stayed after—just took a bite off my plate, a drink off my cup—an says to me, “I’ll see you in a week at the gate, Ms. Matty.”
I said, “Yes, Mr. Smith.”
An that week, I was there. That black motorcar came up the road, left black smoke in the yard, an we was off.
We went long in that car—long, long hours, twisting through mountain after mountain—going north and west an I didn’t know where. The driver was driving, an Mr. Smith was sitting stretched up, straight up, next to me but not touching, cane under his hands an eyes staring straight ahead. I looked out the window, but there was nothing there to see—just black pine trees, mile after mile; black woods; an sometimes a white thing running in the trees far away.
Finally, we got to his house, cindery brick under black pines, big an windowed, four floors tall an its roof steep an peaked under the thin pine branches. The motorcar drove on up to that front door, an I followed Mr. Smith out the car an in the house.
It was like a house no one lived in. It was clean an nice; it was beautiful. There was art on the walls, there was paintings around, there was sculpted beautiful creatures in the corners, an above us, there was electric lights. They buzzed an hummed as we walked under them, an sometimes they went out, leaving the halls part-dark, turning the paintings grey and black against pale grey walls.
But Mr. Smith never noticed this. He said, “Follow me” an then walked off, deep in the halls of that grey house. An I noticed after a while of walking that they was all alike, all alive with paintings that looked out at you an them white stone creatures an them lights that turned on an off above you. An finally, we got to some rooms with a canopy bed, an Mr. Smith looks around, looks at me, an grins with all his teeth. They was grey an wide-set, a space between each tooth an long like fence posts.
“Here, we got our marriage,” he says, an I come forward.
“Yes, Mr. Smith,” I says.
“But,” he says an stops me by holding my shoulders, “I got some business first. I’d do this, I would, but first, I got business. So you wait three days.”
I looks up at him.
“Three days,” he says. “An’ you can have this house. It’s yours. These keys here—here. They’s yours. Any room, any hall, any pretty garden of this house an’ it’s all yours, ’cept for one place. You see this key?” He held it up. One big round ring of keys, all the same shape an size an metal, excepting a small gold key with the hook at the end. “This one, you never touch. You never touch, else you never see another day. You hear?”
“Yes, Mr. Smith,” I tells him.
He looks at me long, looks me up an down, then grins, gives me the keys, then walks past me back down grey halls to the car that’s awaiting where he left it.
&n
bsp; An there I am alone, the new bride in the grey hallways with the off-an-on lights an the queer stone creatures an the doors to my room before me.
I went on in; I slept. An in the morning, it’s early, but I walks out. That house was considerable big, but I had a mind to find Josie an Sadie, an I walked a long time in those hallways, unlocking door after door. There’s some doors just led to empty rooms, nothing but floor an walls an ceiling an not even cobwebs. There’s doors led to rooms full of dark wood furniture, most spotless. There’s doors led to rooms full of beautiful things, rare stones, raw gold, an piles an heaps of sun-shining jewels. But I had a mind to find Josie an Sadie, an I kep looking.
Looked an looked, an after two days, I found his rooms. The only other ones with beds an the only rooms that look lived-in—they had dust on the floor with all footprints scuffed in it an old stains on the floor an linens no one never bothered wash. I looked through them rooms but nothing extraordinary. White shirts in the chest, grey suits in the wardrobe, an in a rack on the wall holding all those pale wood canes with white leather wrapping. I look round an was ’bout to go out when I saw another small door.
Wasn’t even no real door. It was his mirror, tall as I an set into the wall. It had hinges.
So I goes there, an there, I sees a keyhole along the meet of wall and glass. An that being an uncommon door, I took an awful hankering to see what was in there. I tole myself, I shouldn’t, but there’s time left till he comes back. I tole myself, I shouldn’t, but where’s Josie an’ Sadie?
So I took that gold key with the hook, an I opened the door.
An I pull open that door there, bright mirror with a small dark room behind it. Just inside, there’s a switch for the electric light, an I steps inside an cut on the light, an I sees:
Josie an Sadie ain’t live no more. Dead, hung up on hooks ’mong a score of other ladies once pretty as me an my sisters, but bled-out now like animals. Their blood dripping out their necks an down their faces or legs an pooled on the floor.
I step back, an I step in blood.
I fall.
Keys fell in the blood.
My hands in the blood, trying to stand myself up an find me the keys.
My hands, my hair, an I slam the mirror shut an take the keys an run.
An the room’s shut, but my shoes, bloody on the floor, an my bloody hands on the bloody keys an my bloody hair hanging over my forehead.
I flew to my rooms. I washed an washed, an nothing came out. The blood on my hands stained the linens. I wiped at the footprints, but they led right smack to my room. I wiped off the hooked key, but the whole ring was stained. My hair dripped red onto my clothes.
An Mr. Smith come.
I heard him coming down the hall. I heard him back in my room an that blood still on me, an I knew what he was fixing to do. He hadn’t never left the house; he’d just been waiting. I pulled on new gloves over my hands an boots over my shoes an a scarf over my hair. I hides the keys.
An Mr. Smith come to my door. He says, “Well, hello, Matty.”
“Hello, Mr. Smith,” I tells him. An I tells him, “You’re early, Mr. Smith.”
“My business was done early,” he says, coming in. “An what’s you’ve been doing all this time?”
“Oh, walking the house.”
“Any particular rooms?”
“Ah, no,” I says.
“Well, go on an tell me,” he says.
“There’s nothing to tell, Mr. Smith.”
“Well then, little Matty, take off your gloves.”
“But Mr. Smith, my hands are so cold.”
“Well then, little Matty, take off your boots.”
“But Mr. Smith, my feet are so cold.”
“Well then, little Matty, take off your scarf.”
“But Mr. Smith, my head is so cold.”
“Well then, little Matty, where’s my keys?”
“I lost them,” I tells him.
He looks round my room, an he looks at the hiding place, an there ain’t no lying no more. I goes to the hiding place, an I takes the keys out, an he sees them stained in blood. I takes the scarf an gloves an boots off, an Mr. Smith looks me up an down an smiles like his face was cracking.
“Ah, little Matty, you been in my room.”
“That I have,” I tells him, an I backs away to the wall.
“Well, what’re you aiming to do now, Matty?” he asks.
“Well, you’ll see,” I tells him, an I holds the keys in two hands.
An Mr. Smith looks at me an takes a step. An his glasses, he takes off an tosses them to the left, an those eyes, they looking at me close, his mouth grinning wide, an he takes a step. An his cane, he takes an tosses to the right, an he takes a step. An he’s near me now, those grey eyes staring an grinning, an he takes another step right up to me.
An I draw back, an I throw the keys at him. That little gold hook goes to gouge him, an he steps back; an I ducks round him an takes up his glasses, crush them in a hand, an throw them in his face, an he steps back. An those grinning, staring eyes finally shut, all glass in them, an I runs to the cane an takes it an turns, an he steps toward me, opens bleeding eyes to me just as I takes the cane an wham into his head.
Then he falls an never rises no more.
An I steps forward.
Take the keys up, pull that bloody gold hook out of him. Josie an Sadie, I thinks, an I goes on out.
Railroad Bill
Janice Croom
John hunted the black sheep for three days through the piney woods, across the railroad tracks, and back to his farm. Hunger ached in his stomach like somebody had took a shovel and dug a hole in it. That ache wouldn’t let up and musta made him addle-brained. Every time he got close enough to the sheep to take his shot, it seemed like it up and disappeared on him.
Now the black sheep stood in the middle of his cotton field and dared him to shoot it. The weevils were there too, covering every stalk, laying claim to all his hard work, having themselves a fine time eating up his life.
The sheep was downright fat, like it’d feasted on fine grain. Wasn’t nothing like the walking bags of bones that lived in these woods fore they all got et.
One clean shot would take the sheep down. One shot to that round speck of white, smack-dab in the middle of its forehead, taunting him like a bull’s-eye. One shot and he could feed the chillun something besides mud cakes. With only three bullets left and no way to get more, one shot was all he could spare.
“Don’t know where you come from, Mr. Sheep, or how you got so fine and fat, but you ’bout to die.”
He crept closer, careful not to step on a root or anything that might make a noise and spook it. The dried pine needles proved a fair cushion. Took a long time to set up his shot. Finally, when he had the sheep dead to rights, he sent a bullet right to that white patch. Dropped that sheep right then and there. Least he should have. When he got to where that sheep shoulda laid stone-cold dead, wasn’t nothing there ’cept the weevils.