Black Valley

by Jim Brown

  “Why didn’t you tell me or Dad, or the police, for God’s sake?” John had asked his sister.

  “Because you would try to kill him, but you can’t,” she said without qualification. John had exploded with anger, but Judy calmed him with tears. If he wanted to help, he had to stay in control. And then she made him promise that neither he nor any of his friends would lay a finger on Whitey Dobbs, that they would never physically harm him in any way.

  “You can’t hurt him, nobody can. He will kill you if you try. You, me, Mom and Dad – everyone.”

  “Bullshit! But if you really believe that, let’s at least go to the police.”

  “No. He’s not human, and the police can’t stop something that’s not human.”

  Then her voice broke. And between choking sobs she explained how she had arrived home that night, locked all the doors and windows, then stood in a scalding shower wondering if she would ever truly be clean again. She told him how she had put on her pajamas but couldn’t stop trembling. How, less than twenty minutes after being attacked by Whitey Dobbs, she heard a small sound in the darkness of her bedroom. Her own, bedroom.

  Click.

  Whitey Dobbs had raped her again.

  The rain intensified. Lightning shattered the heavens, followed quickly by a cannonade of thunder. The searing flash revealed a low ceiling of black-gray clouds, the texture of dirty snow, clumped together in a series of inverted moguls and plastered to the nighttime sky. Water-gray trees swayed in a harsh wind; twigs and leaves scampered across the roadway.

  “Why would Dobbs agree to be buried alive by the brother of the girl he raped?” Dean asked.

  It was the first anyone had spoken since John had finished the story.

  “We have different last names, John Evans and Judy Pinbrow. He doesn’t realize she’s my stepsister, and he doesn’t have any friends to tell him otherwise.”

  Dean took a deep, slow breath. A new thought occurred to him. “When did this happen?”

  “Saturday, two weeks ago.”

  Ninety-nine Einstein.

  “Two weeks ago?” Dean suddenly felt light-headed. “And it happened after she left the restaurant? I was working that night.”

  “You couldn’t have stopped it. You couldn’t have known that bastard was waiting for her. Right there behind the flower shop. Probably saw her leave and hid in the shadows until she reached her car.” John’s voice was steady and even but carried an edge every bit as sharp as a razor. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  “It’s not that, it’s . . .”Dean felt as if his brain had been replaced with helium and at any moment his head would float up out of his shirt collar and bounce against the Chevy’s ceiling. “He couldn’t have done it. He couldn’t have been waiting for her.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Mason demanded.

  Dean felt his throat constrict as the truth became suffocatingly apparent. “He was still in the restaurant.”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t leave until an hour after Judy left.”

  “You’re wrong,” John said.

  Ninety-nine Einstein.

  “No. No, I’m not.”

  “Then?” John’s question dangled in the air like a hangman’s noose.

  “Then Whitey Dobbs couldn’t have raped Judy.”

  They got out of the car. A cold rain pelted their hair and clothes. The mortuary truck rumbled to a halt behind them. John and Mason grabbed shovels and quickly went to work.

  Dirt had turned to mud, adding several pounds to each shovelful of earth. They worked in silence, steady and focused, keeping a constant pace.

  A pair of Coleman lanterns cast a cold yellow light, revealing an ever growing hole as the skies tried to fill the void with rain.

  After twenty minutes they had barely dented the grave. The five were bone-tired. Then the rain stopped.

  Like a sprinkler that had been turned off, it ceased to fall, and just as quickly, the clouds dissipated. A canopy of stars and a bright moon took their place.

  The boys returned to the task with renewed vigor. Dean and Nathan were resting when John, Mason, and Clyde hit the coffin. Not waiting to lift it out of the grave, John shoved away the black earth and water, his thick fingers feeling for and finding the clasp that held the lid in place.

  Dean and Nathan were sitting on the tailgate of the truck, wet, cold, and filthy. They couldn’t see the coffin but they could smell it, the air becoming suddenly ripe with the odor of sweat and urine.

  “Oh, my God,” John cried.

  “Oh, Jesus, is he dead?” Nathan asked, rushing to the grave. Dean followed.

  “Worse,” John said.

  The lid was open. The inside was revealed in lantern light and starlight. The lace box was soiled with dirt, urine, and blood. But the coffin was empty.

  NOW

  TWENTY-TWO YEARS

  LATER

  4

  “What is it?”she asked.

  The server, who was wearing a body apron, hair net, and scowl, poked the item in question with a spatula. The indentation stayed for a moment, then the meat slowly returned to its original form.

  “Salisbury steak,” he said.

  Piper Blackmoore frowned. “It doesn’t look like Salisbury steak.”

  A protracted sigh leaked from the student’s listless face. “You want it or not?”

  “It’s shaped like a triangle.”

  “It’s a wedge.”

  “A wedge? Since when does meat come in a wedge?”

  “I said it was Salisbury steak; I didn’t say it was meat.”

  Piper laughed, then realized the lethargic student hadn’t intended to make a joke.

  “And what’s with the gravy? It’s got a” – Piper squinted for clarification – “a yellow tint to it.”

  The student slid the spatula under a wedge of pseudomeat. “Want it or not?”

  “What the hell. You only live once, right?”

  No answer.

  “Give me two. I’m getting a plate for a friend.”

  “Must not be much of a friend.”

  He slapped two wedges of meat onto two separate plates and handed them over the sneeze guard without further comment. Piper had the unprofessional urge to put her thumbs in her ears, wiggle her fingers, and shout “Buggah-buggah-buggah,” just to see if she could elicit a response.

  The other servers were slightly more communicable than the boy with the mystery meat, but only slightly. Piper finished the plates with whipped potatoes and, in deference to her lunch date, carrots in lieu of tapioca pudding. Expertly lifting the two trays from the travel bars, she stepped around two others in line and headed for the cash register.

  A chill both cold and hot, electrifying and numbing, surged through her small, tight body. She shuddered. The plates trembled on the trays.

  Cold-hot.

  Her vision dimmed. The world tilted. Tiny pinwheels of light spun at the outer reaches of her peripheral vision.

  Cold.

  “Miss? Miss?”

  Piper blinked. She was breathing hard, heart throbbing.

  “Miss?”

  She dropped the trays on the chrome slide-rails by the cash register. Too hard. The carrot sticks jumped. The wedges of meat covered with yellow gravy remained steady.

  “Card, please,” said the cashier.

  Her vision cleared. Piper blinked again and focused on the face in front of her. Young. Another student. Hair net, apron, but this one was smiling, with large, fish-belly-white teeth.

  “What?” she asked, more to herself than the cashier.

  “Your lunch card. I need to punch it.”

  Piper fumbled in her pocket. Her fingers felt swollen, blunt, void of their usual fluidity. She found the card and presented it.

 
The smiling student took it and punched twice. “You okay?”

  Piper forced a smile and shrugged. “Just got the heebie-jeebies, that’s all. Silly.”

  “Somebody walked over your grave.”

  “What?”

  “Your grave. You know, where you’re going to be buried. That’s what my grandma used to say whenever anybody got the shivers. She’d say, ‘Somebody’s walking on your grave.’”

  He returned her card. His incredibly wide smile widened further.

  Walking on your grave.

  Piper Blackmoore shuddered.

  The classroom was painted faint green, with waist-high dark brown molding, the same color as the expanding concentric circle of water damage tattooed on the acoustic-tile ceiling. A chair with a missing leg was propped in the east corner like a disciplined child. A spider worked a web on the west side.

  There were no clocks in the room. He didn’t own one. Dr. Dean T. Truman always knew what time it was. Nevertheless, he imagined he could hear ticking, the steady marking of time, each beat pushing them closer to the end, closer to the death of Black Valley.

  Unless . . .

  Dean chewed his lower lip and looked down at the letter in his hands. It had been folded in thirds and worn thin at the creases from excessive handling. Three phrases seemed to blaze on the paper: FINAL OFFER, STATE-OF-THE-ART, HAWKINS HILL.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  It’s up to you, Dean, Nathan Perkins had told him. You’re our only hope, our only chance.

  Dean Truman wiped his face and looked around the room. It was an old room, in an old building worn by time and use. The blackboard was actually black and bore the pale residue of many an erasing. The floor, once beige, was now faded yellow. Wires like hordes of black snakes crawled from behind twelve arcane computers sitting atop six scored tables.

  The letter felt heavy in his hands. He laid it on the desk and smoothed it with his palm. What to do? What to do? He took a deep, slow breath; the air was redolent with the scent of ozone and chalk dust.

  The south wall held a paper-laden bulletin board, four sheets deep, and looked like someone had taken the contents of a trash basket and pinned them to the cork-board. The north wall was dominated by multiframed windows fringed in dirt and dust. Dean looked out the window; less than ten yards from the classroom the ground began to rise, climbing steadily to 2,215 feet: Hawkins Hill.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  Wasn’t life supposed to get easier with success? When did winning a Nobel Prize become a drawback?

  “How many job offers have you turned down?” Nathan had asked. “Ten, twenty, more? How much money?”

  “I don’t care about money,” Dean said.

  “Obviously. So you don’t want to leave Black Valley. That’s fine – ”

  “I can’t leave Black Valley.”

  “Okay, whatever. As the mayor and as your friend, I’m delighted you want to stay, but just between you and me, if we don’t do something soon, there isn’t going to be a Black Valley. NxTech is that something. They’re laying it at your feet, at our feet. All you have to do is say yes.”

  Yes. If only it were that simple.

  In Black Valley timber was king. But thanks to the Endangered Species Act and poor management, the king was dead. Without the logging there were no sawmills; without sawmills there were no jobs; without jobs there were no customers. Fourteen businesses had closed or gone bankrupt in the last year alone. With more expected, unless . . .

  The deal had been brokered by Clyde Watkins, now a congressman, and on the surface it looked perfect.

  “They’re bringing the mountain to Mohammed. You say yes, and NxTech will build their next research facility here in Black Valley. You don’t have to leave. You get a new job and a state-of-the-art facility to continue your almighty research, and we get a new company and close to three hundred jobs.”

  “NxTech is a bad company. Their environmental record . . .”

  “So? If they locate here, they will have to follow our guidelines. They’ve already made a bid for the land on the Hill and have agreed to abide by our building codes, saving as many trees as possible and preserving the integrity of the butte.”

  “But other places . . . ”

  “What? They made some unwise choices? Harmed the environment in some third-world country? So what if they did? What’s past is past. How can your saying no to this change any of that?”

  Nathan was seized with a new thought. “But if you say yes, then you’re on the inside. And with your clout you’ll be able to make sure they never harm the environment again. Besides, if you don’t, Black Valley is dead.”

  Tick, tick, tick.

  Dean folded the letter and put it back in his blazer pocket. He had to make a decision. Nathan and Clyde were expecting an answer this afternoon.

  “Hey, what’s up, Doc?”

  Dean raised his eyes. Doubt forgotten, guilt shoved aside, angst, evaporated, the world was put on hold by the presence of Piper Blackmoore.

  She stood in the doorway holding a pair of lunch trays, from which emanated the fragrance of recently reheated meat.

  “Pop quiz and no peeking,” she said. “What time is it?”

  He smiled.

  “Twelve oh- two,” he said with complete confidence. “Of course, the bell rang a few minutes ago, so it’s hardly a fair test.”

  “Good point.” She held up the trays. “You forgot to eat – again.”

  “No.”

  “No?” She cocked her head to the right, looking at him from the corner of her eyes, dimples kissing her sanguine cheeks. “You’ve eaten?”

  Dean stood, sweeping the air with his hand, beckoning her to enter. “As a matter of fact, I have not eaten, but not because I forgot.”

  She entered the room in a bounding stride that he had come to associate with excited children, puppies – and Piper Blackmoore. He cleared a place on his desk and pulled up a second chair.

  “It was all part of my sinister plan. My machinations to get you to serve me.”

  She laughed, an unencumbered sound. Dean was certain that if the Fountain of Youth were ever discovered, the bubbling waters would sound like this.

  “You horndog. You’re such a flirt, Dr. Truman.”

  He chortled at the commonalities of the description, its inclusiveness. Piper Blackmoore was one of the few individuals who treated him as a regular person and not as the poster child for technogeeks, and by doing so, insinuated he actually had a life beyond these four walls.

  He growled, trying to sound lascivious and failing miserably.

  She was clearly amused at the attempt.

  At five foot two inches, she was a small woman but nonetheless shapely. Her legs were sculpted and contoured by a morning regimen of calisthenics and a six-mile run. Her small, heart-shaped face was accented with deep, shadow-brown eyes flecked with gold. Her short black hair was so vibrant, it looked wet. Not like any history professor I ever had in school, Dean thought. But then, there was nothing common about Piper Blackmoore.

  They were diametric opposites; by all rights they should have been at each other’s throat. She was thirteen years his junior, young, flirty, full of life and not afraid to show it. He was older, quieter, a genuine nerd who had never outgrown the awkward stage. He was grounded firmly in science, while Piper never met a crazy theory she didn’t embrace.

  “Coye Cheevers saw a ghost,” she said, as if to highlight his thoughts.

  “Cheevers is not the most reputable of sources,” Dean said as he carefully opened his paper carton of milk.

  “He’s a cop.”

  “Un-huh.”

  “A deputy sheriff.”

  “Yes he is.”

  “A man of the law.” She snapped off a bite of carrot.

  “He’s the sheriff’s second cousin.” De
an said. His milk carton open, he moved on to the meat.

  “You’re friends with the sheriff?”

  “Yep, John Evans and I go way back.” He speared the Salisbury steak with a plastic fork.

  “Sheriff Evans hired him.” She swallowed her carrot and then scooped a spoonful of whipped potatoes.

  “So?”

  “So, doesn’t that say something about Cheevers’ credibility?”

  “Yeah, it says he is very credible as the sheriff’s second cousin.” Dean sawed the meat with a plastic knife. For a moment the wedge seemed unaffected, then finally, reluctantly, it gave in.

  “There is more to the world than computers and numbers, Dr. Dean T. Truman.” She pointed with her spoonful of potatoes for emphasis. “A lot more.”

  “Never said there wasn’t, but it can all be explained by science.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Waste product produced by a male bovine. See, science.”

  She laughed, her eyes echoing her throat.

  “Where at?” he asked as he sawed another piece of meat, a process he would continue until the entire wedge was divided into individual, bite-size portions. Then and only then would he begin to eat.

  “Where at what?” Piper teased, biting off her own slice of steak. She didn’t share his methodical culinary style, moving freely among meat, carrot, and potatoes with no discernible pattern or reason.

  “Where did he see the ghost?” Dean speared a bite of Salisbury steak, put it in his mouth, and chewed.

  “He was at the school crossing – you know, getting ready for the morning traffic.”

  “He saw a ghost at the school crossing?”

  Piper swallowed her meat, then sipped her milk. “No. He was at the crossing. It was in the sky.”

  “In the sky?”

  “Flying.”

  “Flying?”

  “Is there an echo?” She smiled and swallowed something: meat, potato, carrot – he had lost track.

  One bite of steak finished, Dean started on a second. All things in time, all things in order. “So, Coye Cheevers saw a flying ghost.”