Town in a Pumpkin Bash

by B. B. Haywood

  “Sapphire? You mean the woman who was murdered there?” He gave her a quick shrug and stared off into the distant field. “I’ve heard the stories around town, just like everybody else,” he responded vaguely.

  But before he could continue, they heard a shrill whistle and turned to see Maggie wagging an arm at them. “Hey, come on you two, let’s get on board!” she said, and she tapped her watch. “We’re behind schedule. It’s time to get rolling!”

  Candy looked back at T.J., an apologetic smile crossing her face. “You heard the woman,” she said, and pointed to the wagon. “She can be quite a taskmaster. I wouldn’t cross her. Why don’t you climb aboard? I’m sure she can find you a spot to sit.”

  His eyes flicked uncertainly toward the wagon. “It looks full.” He thought about it a moment or two, and finally took a few steps back. “Maybe I’ll just wait here ’til you get back.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. You might as well ride along.” And taking him by the arm, Candy led him around to the back of the wagon and pointed up at the rear slat, which she’d put in place to make sure none of the passengers tumbled out over the rougher terrain. “Up you go.”

  He nodded and took a few steps toward the wagon, as if to climb aboard, but then he looked over at her. “You’re not coming with me?”

  She pointed toward the tractor. “I’m driving.”

  “Oh.” He glanced in the direction she’d pointed before looking back at her, an eyebrow rising.

  She wasn’t quite sure how to take his reaction. “I’m a blueberry farmer,” she said reassuringly. “I know how to handle that thing. I’ll get you there and back safely.”

  The look in his gray eyes told her she’d misread him. “No, it’s not that,” he said with a mild shake of his head. “I’m aware you’re a farmer—I’ve read your columns. All of them. It’s just that I was hoping we could ride together, so we could talk along the way.”

  “Together? In the wagon?”

  “If that wouldn’t be too much trouble.” He pointed up at Maggie. “Maybe your friend could drive this time, so you and I could talk? It’ll help speed things along, you know.” He flashed his grin at her again, and in the brightening light she saw a swirl of lavender specks in his eyes.

  Candy was caught in those eyes for a few moments. To break the spell she cleared her throat, several times. “Umm, give me a minute.”

  In a quick, easy motion, she climbed over the wagon’s back rail and made her way past the seated passengers, apologizing as she went. “Sorry. Short delay. This’ll just take a minute. Sorry.” She picked her way along quickly but cautiously, careful not to step on anyone’s toes or fingers.

  When she reached Maggie, her friend hissed, “What’s the matter? We’ve got to get going.”

  “Switch with me,” Candy said.

  Maggie gave her a quizzical look. “What?”

  “Switch with me. You drive the tractor this time. I’ll do the narration.”

  “But I thought you didn’t like doing the narration.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Do you remember how it goes?”

  “I’ll fake it.”

  Maggie’s eyes widened, and she glanced around Candy toward T.J., who had climbed aboard and was coming toward them. “Who’s your friend?”

  “His name is T.J.”

  Maggie instantly grasped what was going on. She smiled craftily, patted Candy’s wrist, and winked. “I’ve got you covered, honey.” With that, she walked around Candy and waved. “Hi, T.J., I’m Maggie. Why don’t you sit up there at the front of the wagon, beside Candy, and I’ll go fire up that tractor.”

  Turning to the passengers, she added, “Folks, we’ve made a slight adjustment to the program this morning. I’ll have the honor of shepherding you around with the iron beast, and the famed Candy Holliday herself is going to provide the narration for you. And boy, are you in for a treat, because no one knows the inside story of Cape Willington’s mysterious, murderous past better than Candy Holliday herself!”

  FIVE

  A few minutes later, Maggie started up the tractor, and with a jerk and a lurch, the hay wagon rattled forward, to scattered cheers and applause from the passengers.

  Their route would take them along a narrow dirt track through the center of the pumpkin patch to the south side, where they’d follow a spiral pattern to the left, looping around the front of the patch along the parking lot, then angling off to the left again, along the northern edge of the field, before journeying into High Field, where they’d set up several Halloween displays.

  Candy perched on a bale of hay at the front of the wagon and cleared her throat one more time, suddenly aware of all the pairs of eyes gazing expectantly at her.

  “Well, as my friend Maggie said, we welcome all of you to our haunted hayride,” she began, doing her best to recall the narrative script for the tour, which she’d helped Maggie research and write a few weeks ago. “My name’s Candy, and usually I’m the one who’s driving the tractor, and Maggie serves as your host. But due to a last-minute request, we’ve switched places for this trip, so I hope you’ll excuse me if my delivery’s a little rusty.” She glanced at T.J., who was sitting nearby, watching her with a bemused expression on his face.

  “So, let’s see.” She paused, collecting her thoughts, and then decided to just say whatever came to her mind, and launched right into it, sweeping her arm out toward the pumpkin patch. “Maggie mentioned some of the strange happenings that have taken place in and around these fields we’re traveling through, and we’ll talk about those in a few minutes. But Cape Willington isn’t the only town in Maine with a mysterious past. The entire Down East coastline has a spooky history all its own, dating back hundreds of years. This was one of the first areas of the continent explored by the Europeans, who brought all their old superstitions with them. Of course, the Native Americans had already been here for thousands of years, and they had their own myths and legends, which helped fuel the imaginations of the early settlers. It wasn’t hard for them to see ghosts and phantoms and strange creatures in these dark, unexplored woods. A little later on, pirates roamed the islands and coves of Maine, and supposedly left some treasure behind, probably not too far from here, along with a few haunted caves and curses. And just like Salem, Massachusetts, Maine has its own witch stories….”

  She started with the tale of the cursed monument of Colonel Jonathan Buck, who founded the town of Bucksport, Maine, in the mid–seventeen hundreds. “There are a number of variations to this story,” Candy told the passengers, “but they all say the same basic thing. At some point during his time in the area, Colonel Buck became secretly and romantically involved with a young woman—some stories say she was his maid, others that she was a local native woman. In any case, the woman became pregnant, which caused Colonel Buck to lose his cool. Apparently he was afraid his reputation would be damaged should the secret affair become public knowledge, since he also happened to be the local justice of the peace. So he ended the relationship and, to cover up his indiscretion, started spreading rumors that the woman was a witch. And his plan worked. In time, a few years after the birth of her child, the woman was brought before Colonel Buck with allegations that she was indeed a witch, and he pronounced her death sentence—she was to be burned, as all witches are.”

  There were a few gasps and nervous giggles around the wagon as Candy continued, her tone becoming more dramatic. “As the flames were taking this innocent young woman, she cursed the colonel, telling him that she would stomp on his grave until the end of time. And then a strange thing happened. While the rest of her body was being consumed, one of her legs fell out of the fire, and a child—her young son, it is believed—rushed forward and made off with it. That’s all he had left of her to bury, some say. And her curse worked. Several years after Colonel Buck passed away, a tall monument was erected at the center of town in his honor, and a short time later the distinct outline of the witch’s leg and foot appeared on the stone,
as if she was stomping on his grave, and it’s been there ever since. Some call it a stain, and there have been numerous efforts to remove it from the stone. They’ve even replaced the stone itself twice, but whatever they do to it, the image of the witch’s leg and foot returns—and you can see it to this day if you visit Colonel Buck’s cursed monument!”

  As they rolled along, she told the tales of a redheaded ghost who haunted a nearby lighthouse, and a headless woman who regularly appeared to motorists on a dark road in rural Maine, asking for a lift. “Refuse her,” Candy said ominously, “and you just might feel the full force of her wrath.”

  Next she told the tale of the mooncussers—land-based pirates who, a couple of hundred years earlier, used large lanterns as decoy beacons to lure unsuspecting ships onto the rocks of Maine’s craggy coast, where they would then murder the crew and steal the ship’s cargo. And she recounted the story of a pirate’s moaning ghost, who still rattled his chains when anyone approached the haunted coastal cave where he had hidden a treasure centuries earlier.

  “Pirates frequently sailed the treacherous waters along Maine’s coast,” Candy said to her passengers, “and there have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of shipwrecks on the rocky headlands and islands, leaving behind the restless souls of those who perished in the cold waters and continue to haunt our foggy shores.”

  At one point, as Candy paused between stories, T.J. leaned forward with a curious look in his eyes. “And what about this haunted house in town?” he asked. “I’ve heard you have a firsthand experience with that place.”

  “There’s a haunted house in town? I’d love to hear that story,” the elderly woman from Virginia said excitedly, “especially if you have an inside scoop.”

  Candy raised her eyebrows and let out a breath. How to approach this one? She indeed knew the inside scoop, but much of it was still unknown to the public.

  “Yes, it’s true,” she finally said, “there is a ghost who haunts this town, though not in the traditional way of a haunting. It’s more like her spirit looms over everything that’s happened over the past few years.”

  “You’re referring to Sapphire Vine, the Blueberry Queen who was murdered a few years back?” T.J. clarified.

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “And you think she has something to do with the other murders that have taken place locally?” T.J. asked, his voice low.

  “I don’t know,” Candy said, shaking her head. Hesitant to go into the details with children and out-of-towners in the crowd, she leaned in closer to T.J. and said softly, “Why don’t we talk about this later, okay? It’s…somewhat complicated to explain.”

  T.J. took the hint and indicated with a tilt of his head and a slight grin that he’d drop his line of questioning—at least for the moment.

  They had made the loop around the northern end of the pumpkin patch and were just heading through the line of trees into High Field. Candy took advantage of the change in geography to talk about the pumpkin patch itself.

  “As you can see, we’re leaving Low Field now, as this front patch is called,” Candy told the passengers as the wagon bumped over the rough, rocky boundary between the two plots of land, “and heading into an adjoining patch, called High Field. You’ll notice a number of different types of pumpkins in this upper area, including heirloom and ornamental varieties. Off on the right, you’ll see some Long Island Cheese, which are those squat pumpkins with pale orange skin, and over there are my favorites—the Cotton Candy, which are the white ones in the traditional pumpkin shape. Most people use them for decorating, but they make great pies as well.”

  While Candy was talking about pumpkins, several of the children had begun pointing out the various displays along their route. In quick succession they passed a couple of mannequins dressed as a ghostly married couple, a stuffed scarecrow sporting a wicked grin, a crude wooden door over a cleft between two large rocks labeled HAUNTED CAVE—DO NOT ENTER, a series of black tombstones with funny epitaphs written on them, and several large-winged bats entwined in the limbs of a crooked tree. The kids particularly loved the sight of a hideous troll with a long white beard—also a mannequin, that of a small child they’d found at a yard sale, which they’d dressed appropriately—peeking out from behind a nearby stump, a stuffed bag of booty resting close by and gold-painted coins scattered around its feet. They’d also carved scary faces into numerous large pumpkins that lined their route.

  “If you look closely,” Candy told the passengers as they trundled along, “you also might see the ghostly image of the woman who died in this field decades ago and still haunts it. She’s over there, hidden among the tree trunks, silently watching us.”

  Several passengers pointed out the sheet-draped mannequin hidden in the midst of a copse of trees, while others started laughing as they passed by one of the many piles of pumpkins that dotted the field. “And who’s that?” someone asked good-naturedly. “I don’t think he made it.”

  “Who do you mean?” Candy turned and looked.

  “Over there,” said the man in the bee costume, pointing and chuckling. “There’s a leg right there, sticking out from under that pile of pumpkins—sort of like that leg in the witch’s story you told us.”

  Candy wasn’t sure what he meant. “What leg? Where?”

  She saw it then. They were right. Not too far away, what looked like a man’s leg stuck out from beneath a pile of pumpkins, showing the part of the body from the thigh down. It was cantered at an odd angle, and wore brown pants and a relatively new hiking boot on the large foot.

  For a few moments it confused her, and she tilted her head, studying it. “I don’t remember putting that there,” she said.

  In fact, she thought, I don’t remember that pile of pumpkins being there at all. Maybe Maggie or one of the helpers did it.

  But then the tractor came to an abrupt stop. Maggie twisted around and pointed urgently. She’d seen it, too, and it had confused her as well at first, but now she’d realized what it was.

  “It looks like some sort of dummy or mannequin,” Candy heard one of the passengers say.

  But she knew that wasn’t the case.

  The wind left her suddenly, knocked out of her by some invisible force as she realized the truth.

  “That’s not a dummy!” she heard herself say, though the words sounded strangely disconnected, like she was talking underwater. “That’s a real person under there!”

  SIX

  T.J. was the first one out of the wagon, leaping over the side and starting across the field at a sprint, but Candy was too shocked to move. Her body had frozen in place.

  She wasn’t sure what was happening. Perhaps it was the suddenness of this horrific discovery—and the possibility that something sinister had occurred right here, in the pumpkin patch she’d been working in with Maggie for all these months.

  She watched as, after a dozen or so long strides, T.J. reached the pile of pumpkins, where he dropped to one knee and, with desperate abandon, started rolling and tossing the heavy orange globes off the body buried beneath, sometimes using his arms to sweep aside several at a time.

  Could someone survive under that pile? Candy wondered as she watched, still frozen. Could the person buried underneath still be alive?

  Candy saw Maggie jump off the tractor and dash toward T.J., shouting toward the wagon for help, waving her arms frantically. In a few more moments she, too, was digging into the pile of pumpkins.

  Candy heard movement behind her and felt the floorboard shift. One of the male passengers had jumped off the wagon and was running to help.

  That snapped Candy out of whatever state she’d been in. She looked at the other passengers in the wagon, most of whom were turned toward T.J. and Maggie and the activity taking place in the field before them. But a few of them were watching her to see what she was going to do.

  Candy pointed to one of the younger women with dark curly hair. “Do you have a cell phone?” she asked.

  The wom
an nodded.

  “Call nine-one-one,” Candy instructed her. “Tell them there’s been an accident out at Gumm’s pumpkin patch on Willowbrook Road. Tell them they need to send an ambulance right away.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked a little girl sitting next to the curly-haired woman.

  Candy did her best to smile reassuringly. “I’m going to see if I can help. You wait here. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  And with that, Candy rose, sidestepped her way through the sitting passengers, jumped down off the back of the wagon, and dashed across the field, trying to fight down the feeling of dread washing over her.

  Not again, she thought as she ran. It can’t be happening again.

  But it was happening again. She knew it. She could feel it. Somehow she had known it would happen—not when or how, but someday, somewhere.

  But never, she thought, here in this pumpkin patch.

  By the time she reached the pile, they’d moved aside a good portion of the pumpkins, which were stacked heaviest around the body’s head and shoulders. Maggie and a middle-aged man were rolling pumpkins off the legs and lower torso, while T.J. had cleared most of them away from the upper portion of the body. He was huffing, his hair was tossed about, and a line of perspiration had broken out along his forehead. His expensive-looking clothes were caked with dirt and grime. He looked up as she bent to help him.

  “It looks like it’s a he—and he could still be alive,” T.J. said between breaths, giving her a faint ray of hope, “though how in the hell he got himself stuck under here I’ll never guess.”

  “Maybe it was an accident,” Candy said, “or a joke.”

  T.J. shook his head grimly but said nothing.

  He didn’t have to. They both sensed the truth. However this body had wound up in this place, buried beneath this pile, it must have been a deliberate act.