“The shot?”
“Oh yeah,” Nathan said, chuckling as he remembered the shot. “People ‘round here still talk about how he put the Mansfield Warriors out of the state semi-finals… forty-footer, nothin’ but net. Yep, that boy had it made, all right. People all over the country scoutin’ him. Ended up taking a full scholarship with W.V.U.”
“Pretty impressive.”
“Yeah, well, couple of weeks before he was supposed to leave, he got into it with some of these spoiled-assed rich kids up at the Drive Inn. When I got there, Johnny’s knee was all busted up. Paul Henry hit him with a baseball bat—tried telling me the niggers started it. I knew that little bastard was lying. People at the Drive Inn told me what really happened, and I hauled the little piss-ant off to jail.”
“That is something you see where I just came from, unfortunately. I was hoping I’d left that kind of shit behind. So what happened to the white boy?”
“Wasn’t there an hour before his daddy came down and sprung his sorry ass. Didn’t a damn thing happen to him; six months probation.” Nathan sighed. “Johnny Porter? Well, he never played ball again. Of course, human nature being what it is, especially around here, pretty much everybody in town turned their backs on the kid. Three months before, he’s the biggest hero this town ever laid eyes on, then boom: Johnny who?”
“That’s fucked up, but it’s the world we live in.”
“Unfortunately. Poor bastard kicked around working odd jobs that didn’t pay worth a damn, never getting nowhere until he finally got on at the county garage. Three years over there and never once got a raise or any type of promotion. Well, why would he, half black and half a damn Indian like he is.”
“Indian?”
“That’s the scuttlebutt, a direct descendent of some medicine man used to run the ridges up yonder way.”
“Huh.”
“Yep, a double whammy as far as people ‘round here go. Most of ‘em, anyway.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Yeah, well, first thing I did when I took over the sheriff’s job was talk that crooked-assed mayor of ours into hiring Johnny. And I can tell you that weren’t no easy thing to do. Took a lot of convincing to get Charley Hadley to okay it. That’s been my biggest achievement since I became sheriff.”
“What was all that back at Donnie’s?”
“What, the witchery or the spookery?” Nathan said, smiling as he remembered how serious Jerry Mays had been.
“Well, yeah, that, the ghost, the missing kids.”
“People say we’ve got a ghost that haunts State Road 21, the road that runs up and across Seeker’s Mountain. You believe in ghosts, Walt?”
“I believe in what I can see. Show me a ghost and I’ll believe in ghosts.”
“Yeah, me too. We’ve had people swear up and down they’ve seen her, but I never have.”
“That’s the way it goes, Nathan. They’re like U.F.O.’s. It’s always, I know someone, or I know someone who knows someone who’s seen one.”
“Want to know why they call it Seeker’s Mountain?”
“I’ll bite. Why do the call it that?”
“Back at the turn of the century, a posse chased a man across Virginia. He’d killed the sheriff’s brother and the brother’s wife. Legend has it, every town they came to they told the people: ‘We seek a man who rides a Roan horse.’ They called them the Seekers. Well, they chased him up the mountain, all right—seven of them there was, the sheriff and six posse members. When they went up the mountain they split up. Two went up the old dirt road. The sheriff and the other four went up an old path. The two that went up the road came back down. The others were never seen again.”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit or not, Walt, that’s the story.”
“What about the missing kids?”
“That ain’t no bullshit story. When I was twelve, my brother Newton disappeared. Before the week was up, three more children were taken, all boys. Thirteen years later it happened again. Three more little boys vanished into thin air, no clues found, no bodies ever recovered. After I joined the police force, I found out it happened in nineteen twenty-nine, too. Every thirteen years. So with it happening to my brother, you can imagine I’ve pretty much made this my number one priority.”
“You got any ideas about why it happened, who might have been responsible?”
“Not a single fucking clue,” Nathan said, glancing down at his watch. “Nothing in the files except old newspaper accounts. Ol’ Sheriff Peters sure couldn’t figure it out. I’m thinking somebody around here raised some sick son of a bitch, and that sick bastard is walking amongst us. Someone we all know and would never suspect. I’ll tell you one thing: he’s smart. I’m pretty sure all that’s over with, though. He’s either died or gotten way too old to pull it off again. I figure whoever did it had to have been an adult back in twenty-nine, and hell, that was thirty-nine years ago. But over or not, I’ll try and figure it out ‘til the day I die. And if I do, and the son of a bitch is still alive?”
“I know. You’ll blow his brains out.”
Nathan, running a hand through his brown hair, said, “Damn straight I will.”
The light on Walt’s front porch flickered on and off, and Walt laughed. “Well, thanks for the tour, Nathan,” he said, and stuck out his hand. “But I do believe I see the bat signal.”
“You bet,” Nathan said, smiling as Walt shook his hand, and then exited the vehicle.
* * *
Nathan parked his cruiser in front of the police station, got out and walked up the steps, and then through the double doors.
“Evening, Sheriff!” Johnny Porter called out to him.
“Evening, Johnny. How’s it going? Everything nice and peaceful, I hope.”
“Pretty much. Larry Dale’s gone out to Billy Dillon’s place. Neighbors said they were raising seven kinds of hell over there. Other than that it’s been pretty quiet.”
Nathan laughed. Some things never change, he thought, and then said, “What’s that, three times this month?”
“Give or take.”
Nathan chuckled, shaking his head as he made his way back to his office.
The Whitley Police Department sat at the bottom of a small hill on the northern end of town. Housed in a two-story building, it contained a booking room, a lobby with two desks, and the sheriff’s office. A bank of four cells housed the occasional prisoner. The second floor was used for storage. Through his back window, Nathan had a view of the Guyan River. Beyond that was Slag Town, one of the poorest sections of town. Beyond that, was one of many groups of hills and mountains that surrounded his small community. High up, about three quarters of the way to the top of one of those mountains, a huge rock formation jutted out of the mountainside. Ward Rock was named by Indians who would go there to ward off the evil spirits. From Ward Rock you could see nearly the entire county. Almost every boy had hammered their initials into Ward Rock, and most of them could show you where their fathers and grandfathers had hammered their initials when they had been children.
Three sets of pictures sat on Nathan’s desk. On the right, his wife Sharon and their two sons, Nathan Jr. and Newton Cole, smiled up at him. Beside them sat a recent photograph of his parents, Lester and Myrtle Hayes. On the left side of the desk, sitting all by itself, was the last picture Nathan and Newton Hayes had ever taken together.
August of 1942, the twelve-year-old brothers had been fishing with their father. One arm around his brother, a stringer full of catfish dangling from his other hand, Newton stood beaming at the camera. Two months later, Newton Hayes vanished into the dark West Virginia night, never to be seen again.
Nathan leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, and just as he had done thousands of times before, he thought back to that night, remembering it as though it was yesterday, instead of the twenty-six years it had actually been.
Twenty-six years, and it still hurts as much now as it did back then…
Nathan and
Newton Hayes were identical twins, and although only one minute older, Nathan had always been much more mature and responsible than his brother. Nathan would often wonder why being born a minute apart had made so much of a difference in their personalities. Even to this very day, he still wondered. But he would never know why. What he did know, was he and Newton had been as different as night and day. Early on, his parents had told him to look after his impulsive and foolish twin, to help him, to show him the right way. And he tried. God knows he tried. But Newton wouldn’t listen to Nathan or anyone else. He did whatever he wanted, and the hell with anybody who tried to tell him no—anybody, especially Nathan.
Most people couldn’t tell the twins apart, but their friends easily could. Nathan was quiet and introverted; Newton, a loud and obnoxious show-off. Nathan hardly ever cursed. Newton couldn’t string six words together without saying shit, damn, fuck, or some equally distasteful cuss word. Newton Hayes had a mean streak a mile wide. He kicked dogs, spat at cats and stepped on their tails, picked on the smaller children and shot at birds with his pellet rifle.
October 24th was just another Saturday for Nathan and Newton, no different from any other they’d ever seen. The twins had been invited to spend the night with Charley Barnes, a friend from school. On the way out the door, Nathan’s mother stopped him.
“Look out for Newt,” she said. “Make sure he behaves hisself.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you mind your brother, Newt.”
“I will,” Newton said, and then off they went.
Only Nathan and Newton, their parents and Donnie Belcher, ever called the twins Nate and Newt. After October 24th, 1942, no one would ever call them Nate and Newt again.
The friends spent the afternoon playing basketball, the evening watching television and playing checkers. At eleven o’clock, they turned out the light and went to bed. Nathan was drifting off to sleep when a noise woke him. Newton had gotten out of bed, accidentally kicking Charley’s tin trashcan in the process.
Nathan, rubbing his eyes, saw Newton putting his pants on. “Newt,” he said. “The heck’re you doing?”
“I promised Johnny Cox I’d meet him at midnight.”
“Are you crazy?”
“It’ll be all right.”
Charley Barnes begged Newton not to go.
“Don’t worry,” Nathan said. “He’s not goin’ anywhere.” He told his brother to get his dumb ass back in bed and go to sleep, that they had to get up early in the morning, but by now Newton was dressed and halfway out the window. Nathan thought about jumping out of bed and grabbing him, but he was so tired, he just rolled over and closed his eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Newton told him. “Just leave the window open.”
And with that, Newton Hayes dropped to the ground, never to be seen again.
And Nathan Hayes spent the next twenty-six years of his life wondering what might have happened if he’d gotten out of bed and stopped his brother…
Nathan opened his eyes to the sound of a ringing telephone.
“It’s me, Nathan,” his wife said when he answered it.
“Hey, baby. Everything okay?”
“I’m fine, but are you?”
“Of course. Why?”
“You answered on the tenth ring, sweetheart.”
“Sorry. Must’ve been lost in thought. Anyway, what’s up?”
“I need you to stop and pick up some milk on your way home, whenever that’s going to be.”
“I’m leaving right now, as a matter of fact. See you in about thirty minutes.”
On his way to the lobby, Nathan told his young deputy he was calling it a night, and to give him a call if he needed to.
He stopped for a moment after Johnny nodded, smiling at his young deputy. “By the way,” he said. “When’s the new baby due?”
“End of the month.”
“All right. Well, goodnight, Johnny,” Nathan said. Then he walked through the door, down the stairs to his patrol car.
The High Street Boys
Davey Belcher sat up and leaned back against the headboard, rubbing sleep from his eyes. After rising late all summer, he was still having trouble adjusting to school time. Davey hated school and wished this could be his last year. Of course, it hadn’t yet dawned on him that when he finished high school he would have to go to work, or maybe even join the army. That no matter what he did, he would have to wake up even earlier. But this morning all of that was far away as he slipped out of bed and padded down the hallway to the bathroom.
Unlike his older brother, twelve-year-old Billy popped out of bed like a jack-in-the-box: feet on the floor and into the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth and took a leak, flushing the toilet and turning as Davey emerged from the shower, giving his freckle-faced brother a disbelieving look. “What’re you so happy about, goofball?”
“I dunno,” Billy said, a sprig of brown hair standing Alfalfa-style on the back of his head as he turned the water back on.
Billy liked school, liked learning new things; enjoyed reading the books he took home from the library, stories like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island. He had just finished reading a really good one called Beautiful Joe. He also had a fine collection of comic books: Spiderman and Superman, Batman and The Fantastic Four.
Showered and dressed, Billy went down to the kitchen to keep his mother company, and found her scrambling eggs around a frying pan. Karen Belcher asked her son to fix himself and his brother something to drink, and while Billy poured a couple of glasses of milk, Karen, scraping the eggs onto two plates, said, “Go tell your brother breakfast is ready.”
“Hey Davey!” Billy called out. “Mom’s got breakfast ready!”
“Be right there!” came his brother’s shouted reply.
“How many times do I have to tell you to be quiet in the morning? I didn’t say yell at your brother. I said to go and tell him it’s ready.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Billy said. “I forgot.”
“You forgot.”
When Davy sat down, Karen laid a plate with six slices of toast on the table, and then sat down herself. “Listen,” she said. “Because I’m not going to say this again. Your daddy works hard, and he doesn’t get home until late at night. If you two can’t keep from yelling back and forth, I’m going to start punishing you.”
“Yes ma’am,” Davey said. “We’re sorry.”
“Yeah, well, if you don’t stop with the noise, I guarantee you’ll both be sorry.”
“Yes ma’am,” Davey said. Then to his brother, “So Billy, how’s life in Mrs. Peters’ class? Or should I say, The Great Stone Face?”
“Davey!”
“He’s right, Mom. All the kids call her that. She never laughs at anything.”
“Mrs. Peters isn’t there to laugh at your silly jokes. She’s there to teach you. So you be respectful. Listen and study hard, and I’m sure you’ll get along just fine.”
“Yes ma’am,” Billy said, but he didn’t much think anybody could get along with Vonda Peters.
Finished with breakfast, the boys stood up, both giving their mother a kiss on the cheek before turning and walking through the living room and out the front door, careful to make as little noise as possible. Billy, shrugging into a light blue windbreaker, followed his brother down the steps. When they reached the street, Davey said, “Has anybody doused Old Stone Face’s desk with English Leather yet?”
“Huh uh.”
“Don’t worry, they will.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see,” Davey said. He then started his thirty minute hike to the high school while Billy went along to meet his friends, who would move along with Billy to their own school, which wasn’t quite so far away.
Billy and Davey lived at 54 High Street, two doors down from the Pritchard brothers, Jimmy and Jackie, who lived with their parents and two older sisters. Art Wilkins Jr., who was the spitting image of Art Wilkins Sr., lived with his three sisters
and two brothers, eight houses to the west of the Belcher brothers. The neighborhood children knew Art Sr. as The Machine, because it seemed like Junior’s mother was always pregnant, and The Machine just kept right on cranking them out. (Junior and his brothers and sisters had all been born about a year apart.)
Billy met up with the Pritchard brothers, and together they walked around to Juniors’ place.
“Hey Junior!” Jackie hollered. “Come on down!”
“Be right there!” Junior called out to them. A minute later, he came charging down the steps two at a time, grinning from ear to ear as the cool October breeze stirred his light brown hair.
“What’re you so happy about?” Jimmy asked him.
Laughing, Junior said, “The Machine’s at it again. They thought I was down here waitin’ on y’all, and you could hear ‘em all over the house. Jackie yelled and all of a sudden they just stopped. Bang, bang, bang, then nothing.”
“All right, The Machine strikes again!” Jackie called out, all of them laughing as they headed off for school.
Vonda Peters, E.L. Davis & Gary Harbus
At sixty-three years of age, Vonda Peters had been teaching the children of Whitley West Virginia for more years than she cared to remember. She had been babysitter to many of their parents, and if any of them ever had reason to receive a call from her complaining about a misbehaving son or daughter, you could bet the farm there would be hell to pay somewhere in Whitley that night.
Plump, with a grandmotherly presence, she had a warm and friendly smile that would immediately make a person feel at ease. Her eyes, the color of the clear blue sky, sparkled when she was happy, and flashed like lightning whenever she became angry.
Vonda was glancing up at the clock when E.L. Davis paused in front of her desk, smiling a moment before turning and walking down the aisle and taking a seat at the back of the room, triggering from Vonda a memory that took her back to the very first day of the school year…
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