by Cameron Judd
Passing her office building on her way to the television station, she saw Eli’s car in its usual spot and wanted badly to stop. No time. The editing bay was calling and she had exclusive footage. Funny and sad, she thought, how bad news becomes good news for reporters.
She got to the station and, after a brief conversation with her producer, began editing what she had, though the sight of the crushed-and-rolled VW revived the sickened feeling she’d experienced while on the scene. She actually feared she might throw up in the editing room.
For the first time in her fledgling career she found herself wondering if she’d made the right occupational choice.
That was on her mind when she had her only interruption. Her producer came in with a quick question: were either the family killed in the crash or the trucker who caused the accident from the immediate area? No to both questions, Melinda replied. The family came from Middlesboro, Ky., and the trucker was from the Tennessee town of Maynardville. His name had been James Dale Moody.
WHEN HER WORK WAS done and her report turned in and scheduled for midday broadcast, Melinda drove slowly back to Tylerville and Hodgepodge, determined to get her mind off the accident. The closer she got to Tylerville, the more she wanted to maintain her solitary situation as long as possible.
So it was time for the scenic route. She turned off the highway and onto a smaller road, and meandered her way through beautiful farmland and rural communities. In her current state of mind she could have happily driven on for miles, farther and farther into the countryside, forgetting duties and schedules and the horrors that had started her day.
Her escapist fantasy was intruded upon by the undignified reality of a call of nature. She knew this road and the fact that there were no gas stations or convenience markets ahead for miles.
There were, however, churches aplenty, little country churches that seemed to sprout up like weeds along such backroads. The smallest of these churches often kept their doors unlocked around the clock. “Send one my way, Lord,” she whispered.
Just over a mile down the road she spotted the Campbell Mill Tabernacle of Faith and pulled onto the thinly graveled surface that served as a parking lot. She found the door unlocked, as hoped, but inside, no restroom. Muttering a very church-inappropriate word, she went back outside and was glad to see a couple of old-fashioned outhouses in back. She darted for the one marked LADIES.
When she exited the privy, something attracted her eye southeastward. Through the trees she saw what looked like the rear of an old gas station. A sudden soft-drink craving struck and she walked in that direction, finding a footpath through the woods.
It had been a service station at one time, but no longer. The hoped-for soft drink machine was not present, nor were any gas pumps on the concrete island out front. A wooden sign with the words HALL OF HISTORY ONE DOLLAR ENTRANSE FEE painted crookedly on it hung above the open door. Someone was moving about inside.
Curious and hopeful of an indoor vending machine, Melinda went to the door. “Hello?”
A hag of an old woman, stooped by a significant dowager’s hump, shuffled up from a shadowed corner and approached Melinda in the doorway. Seeing the craggy old face with its glittering eyes looking back at her caused Melinda to think that she’d never experienced a more Shakespearean moment. Or at least a more Disney one.
“Are you the one?” the old woman asked. “Are you my angel?” A pause, and a look of sadness. “But no. No. I forget sometimes … my angel has gone. Risen and flown on to the Gloryland.”
“Ma’am, I’m just looking for a soft drink machine. That’s all.”
The crone stared intently at Melinda’s face. “I thought you were my angel. Because yours is an angel’s face if ever I seen one … and I have seen ’em. Angel faces and devil faces alike, in the wakeful world and in dreams. And I’ve seen you before, miss.”
The words and tone were oddly discomfiting. This place, and this bent old woman, left Melinda unsettled. Whatever the Hall of History was, it was a weird place with a weirder occupant. If not for the rudeness of it, she might have turned and run back through the grove of trees to her parked Bronco.
“I thank you for the kind words, ma’am, but I’m not an angel, just a thirsty lady. And if I look familiar, it’s probably because I work in television news. I meet a lot of people who know they’ve seen me but can’t remember where.”
A dry tongue swept over drier lips as the old woman reevaluated her visitor. Then she nodded. “Yes! You are right, child! That’s how I know you … I seen you on my TV!”
“My name is Melinda Buckingham. I grew up in Kincheloe County and am working here now in a news bureau office that has just recently been set up. And you are … ?”
“I was Erlene Ledford in my growing up days. Then I married and was for some years Erlene Parvin.”
Parvin. Melinda experienced a ripple of quiet panic at the mere voicing of the name.
“I’m back to Erlene Ledford now. My old man, sorry old thing that he was, he divorced me years ago, the very day I turned fifty-two. After that I took my girlhood name back again. Got no use for the Parvin name, nor any that wears it. Bad bunch are the Parvins. No loyalty in a Parvin soul. No decency.”
“I … I … yes indeed, ma’am. I avoid the Parvins myself.”
“You’re Ben Buckingham’s gal, if I ain’t mistook.”
“You know my father?”
“We’ve met. Good man. There’s a story that he shot a Parvin once. Others say he didn’t, that the boy just hurt his own self somehow. If Ben Buckingham did shoot him, he’s a hero to me. Parvins can all go to hell, far as I’m concerned.”
This was one bitter old woman, Melinda realized. “I think I know one of your own kin, Miz Ledford. Are you related to Micah Ledford? I know Micah, and his wife, Nancy.”
“My sister Essie’s grandson, Micah is. That boy, though, he don’t come see me. He’s one of them who thinks I’m a crazy woman.”
No surprise there, Melinda thought. All she said was, “Yes. I remember Micah saying the name of Essie.”
The ancient head nodded. “Essie had her a store for years down below the hill Micah lives on. See that bonnet hanging on the wall yonder? That was one of Essie’s. She give it to me for Christmas, 1961. Essie always wore a bonnet and thought I should do the same. I never took to the durn things. Didn’t like how they felt on my noggin. I keep that one to remember Essie by.”
“My boyfriend remembers her from when he used to visit Kincheloe County when he was a boy. His grandfather lived on Harmony Road and was named Will Keller.”
The close-set gray eyes glittering above the hooked, witchy nose seemed to spark. The bent-over head nodded. “I knowed Will Keller. Knowed him well. He was your grandfather, you say?”
“My boyfriend’s grandfather. Not mine.”
“You tell your boyfriend, then, that his grandpa was a fine man in Erlene Ledford’s estimation.”
“I will, ma’am. My boyfriend’s name is Eli. He works for the newspaper here.”
“I’ve got me a fine friend what works for the Brechts and has for many a year. He’s a black man, name of Jimbo.”
“Jimbo Bailey … yes. I know Jimbo. I love that old man … he’s been a good friend to me, and to Eli.” She mentioned nothing of Jimbo’s health condition, unsure whether he would want that information spread.
Melinda looked past Erlene’s stooped form at the odd contents of the room. It was filled with tables that were really just cloth-draped pieces of plywood laid across saw-horses. On top of the tables were what looked like a conglomeration of miniature houses, vehicles, barns, and hills molded of clay and studded with evergreen sprigs representing trees. Looking closer, Melinda saw as well small human figurines, also molded from modeling clay, and like the buildings and landscape features, quite well done. Despite the initial impression of disordered clutter, a closer look revealed artistry.
“Did you make these dioramas, Miz Ledford?”
“I did, c
hild. Would you like to see them? There’s more farther back.”
“I would love to see them. May I come in?”
“Have you a dollar, child? For if you don’t, I’ll give you admittance anyway in memory of your grandfather, old Will Keller.”
“Like I said, ma’am, Will Keller was my boyfriend’s grandfather, not … but thank you for the gesture. As it so happens, I’ve got a dollar.”
Melinda produced a bill and handed it to the old woman, who took it with the eagerness of someone unaccustomed to seeing very many of them. She dropped it in a big, open-topped glass jar standing near the door on an old milking stool. There were only three other bills in the jar, and half a handful of change. The Hall of History obviously did not do much business. Not surprising, given the gloomy witch’s lair atmosphere of the place.
That atmosphere changed some when Erlene Ledford flipped a switch and track lights lined across the ceiling came on. Illuminated nearest to them was a good, and as far as Melinda could tell, largely accurate clay model of an old Cherokee village of small log dwellings with open front doors. The little village was populated with native figures depicted in the common chores of Indian life: two women bent over boiling kettles, a third woman scraping a pelt, babies nearby on spread-out hides, children playing and running, old men crafting native weapons, old women visiting each other. Two tiny clay hunters with a twig pole across their shoulders carried a slain deer into the clearing.
“That’s the way it was before our kind came,” Erlene said. “We changed it all, and changed those folk with us.”
On down the table, the diorama blended with one showing frontier traders traveling by canoe down a river, wary Indian boys watching them from hiding along one bank. The next scene showed a parlay between the Indians and whites, one in which Melinda noticed with admiration the amount of detail Erlene had managed to sculpt onto the miniature faces.
“I see you looking … I done the faces with the ends of toothpicks,” Erlene said proudly. “I was just teaching myself when I made these first ones, but I think I done right well. There’s better ones further back.”
“I’m impressed, ma’am,” Melinda said, her mind already on the intriguing feature piece she could do about such an odd, virtually unknown would-be historical attraction as this one. If she could do a good job of it, maybe the old woman’s entrance-fee jar would have more than a few bills and coins in it.
They moved on down the table, seeing the advance of local history as envisioned by Erlene Ledford. Forests of model trees were cleared by clay-figure axemen, cabins rising, plows breaking land, and in the middle of the second table, a miniature frontier fort, its palisades made not of clay, but of carefully whittled sticks.
“That’s Kincheloe Station,” Erlene said. “Whittled it myself, and cut my fingers aplenty doing it. But it came out good, I think, and I made it to scale, or close as I could.”
“You’re talented, Miz Ledford.”
“Thank you, miss.”
In the area devoted to images from the mid-1800s, Melinda found a diorama, labeled AN UNANSWERED PRAYER, that she couldn’t quite interpret. A whittled figurine man knelt in a posture of supplication to heaven, an axe on the ground before him, looking from a patch of woodland toward a burning house surrounded by men bearing torches and rifles. Between the raiders and the kneeling man were the dramatic and well-carved little figures of a cowering woman and a little girl, both loomed over by two of the raiders.
Melinda studied the diorama closely and asked what it depicted. “It’s an old local tale,” Erlene said. “Some declare it true. I can’t say.”
“But what’s happening there?” Melinda waved at the display.
Erlene tried to stand a little straighter, with meager success, and managed to change her voice to make it sound dramatic. Her lines were obviously well-rehearsed, which was impressive because she probably seldom had reason to recite them given the obvious low visitor level of the Hall of History. “His name was Albert Kincheloe, descendant of the line and loins of old Col. Kincheloe himself. He was a godly man who farmed out near the old Winona Court Lodge location, and when the war came, he sought to live peaceably with all men and not tie himself to either side. But living in peace was no easy thing in those grim days, and he found himself threatened on all sides. Even so, he refused to carry his rifle with him when he went to his fields, seeking to show that his faith was in God and not in protections devised by men.
“It was when he was chopping wood, of course having left his rifle at home, that the raiders came. Vile, wicked killers, a dozen devils, seeking to use the troubles of war to their own gain. They struck hard and took Albert Kincheloe’s wife and daughter from their home and set it ablaze. Then it came clear that death was intended for the Kincheloe women, and before that things worse than dying. From the edge of the forest, Albert saw the wickedness happening at his home, and knew he had no weapon with which to fight for the rescue of his family. No weapon except one axe. A single axe against a dozen armed raiders. Albert dropped to his knees and prayed that God would give him the power, somehow, to do what had to be done. ‘God, may this axe be blessed so it may become an instrument of rescue for the innocent.’ And with the axe in hand he raced to where the raiders were doing their work, and attacked them without fear.”
“That’s an inspiring story, ma’am,” said Erlene.
“It is not, miss. The prayer went unanswered. Albert took his axe and ran out to do battle with the raiders, but he was shot down fast. The axe was taken from his hand and flung far into a thicket that had sprung up around a hole in the ground, having saved no one despite Albert’s prayer that it would save the innocent. Mother and daughter died that day, after bad misuse, and Albert was left lame and barely alive from the bullet that had pierced him. He lived, but put aside his faith and was a despiser of his Maker for the rest of his life.”
“Oh. That’s … very sad.”
“There are happy stories shown in this place, and happy ones out there in the world, miss. But there are sad ones as well. Stories of faith’s victories, and faith’s defeats. That’s the reality of this world we live in, miss.”
“I like the victory stories,” Melinda said. “I think I’d rather not hear the others.”
“You belong in Kincheloe, then. That’s the way of this county: hide the woeful tales beneath the happier ones, and pretend the woe is not there.”
“I’m ready to move on and look at some of those happier stories now, ma’am.”
They moved again along the table rows. Despite the creepy feeling the old woman gave her, Melinda’s admiration for Erlene’s craftsmanship, and grasp of history and storytelling, grew with every step. That admiration made a sudden jolt backward when they reached a scene, somewhat larger-scaled than others, showing a man kneeling on a hillside in a posture of terror, arms raised protectively over his head. Above him, dangling from a thin wire, was a clay model of a flying saucer.
“That’s my cousin Franklin kneeling there in fright,” Erlene said. “In 1953 he was visited and took by the Martians right up into their saucer-plane, which flew right over him and stopped dead still in the sky like a hummingbird. It hit him with a spotlight, like this.” Erlene reached under the dangling saucer and flipped an unseen switch. A high-intensity desk lamp bulb came on and bathed the kneeling male figure below in light.
“They drawed him up, like Jesus rising to heaven’s glory, and visited with him awhile. They let him go in the end, but he was never right after that. It done something to his mind and his body. It left him so he couldn’t tell whether it was cold or hot outside. It all felt the same to him. He froze to death in January of ’63, having wandered naked from his house into the snow. No one ever knew why … some say he heard a call from the sky, beckoning him to come out.” The old woman paused and actually wiped a tear that told Melinda that Erlene was utterly serious about this farfetched flying saucer story.
Melinda’s fast-developing plan to do a human-interest segm
ent about this place screeched to a halt. She’d have to think hard about whether she wanted to promote Erlene and her strange museum. Erlene obviously was a talented natural sculptor of small-scale figures and scenes … but flying saucers that left a man so numbed he couldn’t tell he was freezing? Maybe there wasn’t as valid a story here as Melinda had hoped. Human interest was her lifeblood as a broadcast journalist, but she had no ambition to submit either Erlene or herself, or the television station, for that matter, to public ridicule.
The last table was reached, and Melinda was amazed by an extraordinarily detailed model of the town of Tylerville as it had been around the year 1970. Though the town was fifteen years older now, much of it remained the same, and Melinda marveled at the care Erlene had taken with even such minor things as the architectural ornamental details at the top of the courthouse pillars and the distinctive steeple of the Asbury church. She’d even put in a shadowed area on the brick wall of a Savings & Loan on Brandon Avenue, reflecting an area of damaged brick on the real-life building where a truck had crashed into the building in 1968.
Surely, she thought, I can find a way to get a valid story out of Erlene’s Hall of History. Perhaps simply by focusing on the obvious skill behind it and the historical aspects of it that weren’t doubtful or loony. She could simply breeze past the section with Cousin Frank and the flying saucer. There would not be time for much detail, anyway, being television news.
AT THE BACK OF THE DISPLAY ROOM they reached a door, upon which hung an intricate and strangely shaped hardwood plaque bearing a chiseled-in image of a man behind a plow, digging a furrow behind a plow mule. Below the plaque were letters painted on the door in the same manner as those on the sign outside. RISING ANGEL.