by Ann Hite
I choked on the thought.
Jack came closer but didn’t touch the skull.
“So he’s been here all along,” Oshie almost whispered.
The crowd buzzed. My heart turned empty like a ghost ship on the water.
“We got something to talk about now.” Jack spoke so everyone could hear.
Charles Ray placed the skull in Jack’s hands.
“I’ll call the sheriff tomorrow, but I don’t know what to do with this until then.” Jack looked at me.
“Put it back.” The tree had been Hobbs’s grave all this time. “It seems only right.”
He nodded. “The sheriff will want to see it like it was before Charles Ray found it.”
“Leave him be. Don’t even bother the sheriff.”
Jack studied me a minute. “We have to call him. It’s the right thing to do.”
Ah yes, the right thing to do. I’d almost forgotten. “I guess you’re right.”
“Let’s tell ghost stories!” This came from one of the teenage girls.
The group rushed off; Lonnie pulled at me. “Let me go, Mama. I want to go with the big boys.” I should have held him close to me so he could never be hurt, never find out who his scary friend really was. He was my heart.
Jack stood beside me as I released my grip on Lonnie and he ran off.
“So, that boy found Hobbs’s skull. It doesn’t seem real.”
Jack gave me a worried sideways look. “Lonnie found the skull, Rose. Charles Ray took it from him.”
“Granny’s going to tell a ghost story. You got to come listen.” Oshie ran up to Jack.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Lonnie found it?”
“Ah, don’t worry. He was exploring like the big boys.” Jack made the whole incident sound normal, as if kids found skulls every day.
I went to sit around the fire while Jack went back to the tree. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear a ghost story, but I didn’t want to sit alone.
An old woman, all bent over with a cane, looking like a witch herself in the firelight, spoke to the crowd. “I got a good one. Sit down, little ones.” All the kids clambered around the fire. The old woman sat to the left of the fire. Shadows from the flames gave her a spooky look. I moved closer to Lonnie, watching Jack still standing by the hollow tree. I wondered what he was thinking. Had he figured out it had to be Nellie who killed his stepbrother?
The old woman settled in a kitchen chair. “It all started when I was a bit of a thing. Long before Hobbs Pritchard’s mama was brought to this mountain.” She turned her gaze on me. I imagined she’d been a pretty woman when she was young. “The government had sent a newfangled teacher—Miss Palmer was her name—up here from Raleigh. That’s the capital.”
“We know,” the kids yelled.
“She had it in her mind to save us kids from ourselves. You know, not many come up here and take to Black Mountain’s ways. Most of the time she walked around with a headache she swore we caused. But she did learn us about Halloween.”
The kids, now quiet, listened like they were in another world.
“She’d tell us the darndest stories about kids in Raleigh dressed up in costumes, going door to door promising good luck for treats and bad luck for empty hands. This sounded like heaven to us kids up here on Black Mountain. In those days, we had no time for foolishness of any sort. I purely loved a party, and I told my best friend, Mary, who thought we ought to have us one of those nights for our own.
“So Mary being who she was, much older than her ten years, took herself right up to Miss Palmer and asked if we could have a party like that. I always admired Mary for the way she stood up for us to the grown-ups. Miss Palmer wasn’t sure it would work here on the mountain since we were so spread out, and then she got an idea.
“She guessed we ought to have a big get-together with games, treats, and ghost stories like this.” The old woman turned her smile of perfect teeth on the group.
“Of course, this mountain has always been full of ghosts. We all know it. It breathes like any human here. That’s why we don’t much get scared when we come across something odd. But, back then, I’m ashamed to say I was right scared of ghosts, but worst of all I was scared of the dark. I was scared of this old mountain.”
“Oh, that can’t be,” a tall boy yelled from the back.
“It is, son. When my granny told ghost stories, I always listened and never was a bit worried until I got into bed and the creeps crawled right in with me. Many a night I slept with the covers over my head even in the one-hundred-degree heat.
“Anyway, it was my luck that Jim—he was my big brother—hated being stuck with me and ran off early to the big party. I was left with the supper dishes. Mama was down in her back, and Daddy, well, he had done drank himself into a dither, passing out on the floor. My granny wasn’t much on walking, especially in the dark with her bad eyes, so I was left on my own.
“The wind had picked up some, and I tried not to put too much thought into the sweater I left hanging on the rocker at home. Mama had made me a right nice scarecrow costume, but I was losing straw with every step. The sun had set and the road got darker and darker. The harvest moon hung on the edge of the trees and lit my way with smoky gray light. I sure hated that dark. I moved one foot in front of the other up that shadowy road, purely hating Jim for leaving me behind. Then I saw the old bend in the road.” She looked out at the kids. “You know the one with all those thick trees. It’s sure a nice place to go through when the hot sun is out, but it’s another story when it’s dark. I knew by looking at those thick trees that they were going to block out that moon. I thought on ways to go around, but you know there ain’t another way since there’s a swampy place all around it.” The kids all nodded together.
“That’s when I heard a giggle. I swung around and there stood a girl my age. She was right pretty with long dark curly hair. Fresh rosebuds hung from pink ribbons. I found that a bit strange for October, but I’d seen Granny’s roses bloom as late as November when it was warm. The girl wore a long old-fashioned slip like my granny would have worn in her younger days.”
I took a deep breath. This sounded like the girl I saw in the woods.
“I asked that girl her name.” Granny looked out at all the kids. “She said her name was Katleen. Katleen Morgan.”
“That’s my great-grandmother,” one of the boys yelled.
A girl nearby laughed. “Tyler, you’re kin to everyone on this mountain.”
“I told her she had a right nice costume, better than mine. I was an envious little girl at the time. Katleen giggled and told me they was her burying clothes. I wasn’t the smartest child either cause I thought she was making it all up to scare me, but I was so relieved to have company, I would have walked with the devil himself had he been there. I asked her if she was on the way to the party, but she only shook her head. She told me how she dearly loved parties.” Granny sipped her apple cider. “When we walked into the shelter of them trees, the first thing I noticed was Katleen’s eyes. They was the color of cornflowers and showed up right nice in the dark. She told me how she used to be afraid of the dark.
“I asked her why she wasn’t scared no more. Her answer was as simple: because there wasn’t nothing to be afraid of. By this time, I was thinking that girl was pretty stupid. I sure didn’t confess to my fear, cause you see, I was proud.
“She went on and told me how I should put no store in the darkness. Whatever could get me in the dark could sure enough get me in the day. We walked on.
“Now, this is the important part and it’s exactly why I have to differ with the part of the Bible where it says pride cometh before a fall. She offered me her hand, but I couldn’t get past my pride. I told her I wasn’t no baby. She took her a big deep sigh like she was right disappointed.
“I pointed to lights ahead and told her we had to cross the branch and we’d be there. She stopped dead in her tracks. I yelled at her to come on, but she hung back as I crossed that old
bridge. Now I was feeling like the boss. When I turned back to warn her I was leaving her behind, she was gone, vanished.
“You can imagine how good I felt when I got to that party. I felt even better after I whopped my brother up the side of his head. And I guess that’s all.” Granny held her hands out in front of her.
“It can’t be!” the kids yelled.
“Well, I guess I left out one little part.”
“Tell us!” Even I yelled with the kids that time. Jack stood behind me now, touching my shoulder like something had changed.
“When I got home that night my granny was rocking in her chair by the fire. Now, I couldn’t get the whole thing out of my head, so I told her that I’d seen some strange girl on the road. She asked me if anyone at the party knew of her. I told her she turned back when we got to the bridge.
“Granny’s face got still like she always did when she was mad at Jim and wanted to smack him. She asked if that girl had a name. I told her.
“She leaned way back in her chair and grabbed her heart. She told me what I’d seen weren’t human, but a haint. It seems haints can’t cross water. Then she asked me the strangest thing. She asked me if the haint touched me. I told her no. She said had Katleen Morgan touched me, I would have been the next soul to die. I was glad I never touched her.
“It seems Katleen Morgan had left out from a friend’s house after dark one night a long time before—it was right around Halloween—and she got all twisted up. She was scared of the dark. It broke my granny’s heart when they found Katleen with her lips purple. It was the first dead person my granny ever laid eyes on. Now me, I learned something from that night.”
“What did you learn?” the kids yelled.
“I learned never, ever walk alone on these old roads after dark, cause I’d lived my own Halloween story, and I didn’t care a bit about testing my luck again. So if you see Miss Katleen, she’s here for a fear that you got.”
The kids roared. Jack squeezed my shoulder.
“Do you remember the little girl I saw this afternoon?”
He nodded. “What is your fear, Rose?” I knew his question was more than plain joking. It was about much more than that.
Forty-five
Something at the party turned me around when it came to Jack. If possible I watched him closer than before. He had this way of walking as if his every action had a true purpose. I began to think about his past, about him. Could he really be so good?
“What did you think when your mama brought you up to Black Mountain so she could get married?” I had cooked a big dinner of beef stew and homemade bread.
He held a piece of the bread in his hand, butter dripping down his knuckles. After a long breath, he spoke in his quiet manner. “I probably took to the situation as much as Hobbs did. I just went about my dislikes in a whole other way than him.” He waited to see if that was enough information or if I’d push for more. The look on my face must have told him to keep going. “I thought Mama had lost her mind marrying a man from Black Mountain without hardly knowing him. But she insisted it wasn’t about loving someone. She didn’t have no time for love. Instead, she saw it as a way to give me a better life, a instant family. She was plain silly thinking both of Henry James’s kids would welcome me into the family.” He looked over at me and took a big bite of bread, chewing slowly.
“So how did she die?”
“The doctor said natural causes, probably her heart. And I always accepted that right along with Henry James and AzLeigh, but then you found that necklace. See, Henry James put that burying box in the casket. I watched him. The necklace was a gift from me and AzLeigh for her birthday. He said it was the best gift he’d ever seen given. I knew him too well. He didn’t take that necklace out. That leaves AzLeigh or Hobbs. No way AzLeigh would have gone near a dead body in those days.” He leveled his stare right on me as if I weren’t the real person sitting in front of him. “So it could only have been Hobbs.”
A flicker of light flashed in my mind.
Jack nodded. “And Hobbs knew the necklace was worthless. So why would a boy who hated his stepmother as bad as Hobbs hated his take her necklace?” Jack sat up straight. “When Hobbs was younger, he used to take me hunting. I never much wanted to go but Mama made me. She said it would be good and that Hobbs was making a effort. That’s before she figured him for who he was. One time he nailed a doe. Killed her in one clean shot. When we got to the deer, he took out his hunting knife and sliced off the doe’s ear. He stuck it in the pocket of his jacket. Then he looked at me and said, ‘I always take me a souvenir when I hit my target.’ Those words have been playing themselves through my mind over and over since I saw the necklace.” He watched for my reaction. “Somehow I don’t think the necklace was in that drawer the whole time. Did you find anything else that went with it?”
My head was filled with a roaring sound, but I knew this was more than just a question. It was a test. “I found a diary that belonged to Nellie. It wasn’t nothing special. I thought it was old. It looked too old for her to own it. But it only talked about Hobbs being Hobbs. I burned it because I just couldn’t have any part of Nellie around me.”
He slapped the table, making me jump. “I knew it. One day I surprised Nellie while she was exploring the attic. I could tell by her face she was lying when she told me nothing important was there. She was looking at Hobbs’s mama’s books. I recognized them. Of course she wouldn’t have known the necklace was Mama’s.” He shivered like someone was walking over his grave. “Or maybe she did. Sometimes I wondered if Nellie wasn’t somebody different than I knew.” The curl to each word made me flinch. I never wanted to be on the receiving end of this tone.
“I should have given you the diary. I’m sorry.”
“Unless she wrote in there that she killed Hobbs, the book wouldn’t have done anyone no good.”
I didn’t tell him about the last paragraph. I couldn’t. He reached out and touched my hand. “You are a real good person, Rose Gardner.” His fingers were warm on my skin. A change floated in the window and sat down at the table with us. While I still hurt for Hobbs, the stirring in my chest was caused by this man sitting across from me. And I wasn’t so sure I liked it.
“I hope Hobbs never killed anyone.” The words sat in front of him.
“He killed, Rose. He killed. I wish I could tell you something different, something sweet and nice that you could rest in, but Hobbs Pritchard killed at least one man. I know this because I was there. And maybe he killed more than that. No way of knowing for sure.” The words were soft but full of hidden anger.
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry too.”
I finally understood who Hobbs could be.
Someone chopped Hobbs’s head off and stuffed it in a tree. The action was filled with angry violence, the kind that could only be committed by someone who both loved and hated him. The sheriff came up the mountain on Monday afternoon. Everything about him was slow. He huffed and puffed as he studied the skull in his hands. “It’s human, all right.” A wrinkle formed on his forehead. “It’s the real thing.” He flicked his thumbnail over the smooth bony surface as if he handled human remains every day.
“It probably belonged to Hobbs.”
The sheriff kind of smiled. “Yeah, I figured it might. Unless someone else up here has come up missing.”
“Just Nellie, but you knew about her.”
He nodded. “I remember it well. Caused quite a stir.”
“Who do you think killed Hobbs?” Jack took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. I was learning he did this when he was deep in thought.
The sheriff turned the skull upside down. “Ain’t no telling who put an end to this man’s life. He had enemies all over. I heard that he had a man out of Atlanta looking for him.”
Atlanta. Hobbs had men from as far away as Vicksburg, Mississippi, looking for him, but I kept my mouth shut. What good would speaking out do? I knew who killed him.
> “His wife disappeared about the time he did, right?” The sheriff looked at Jack, but I could have sworn he was watching me out of the corner of his eye.
“Folks searched a good bit for her but didn’t find nothing.”
The sheriff held the skull out to Jack.
“Yep, nothing was ever found.” Jack’s voice was a touch sad, or maybe just tired.
“Well, if his wife killed him, she was damn good at what she did. That truck of his had nothing in it.”
For a second Jack was still and then he stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out the wedding band. “This was found in the truck a week or so ago.” He looked at me and back at the sheriff. “I know for a fact it belonged to Nellie.”
The sheriff looked at it. “Looks like a man’s ring to me.”
Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Hobbs was just like that. He’d win something in a card game and pass it off as a gift.”
The sheriff laughed. “No wonder she killed him.”
“If she killed him, it was because no one would help her.” Jack didn’t look at me.
The sheriff tilted his head to the side. “What you getting at?”
“He beat her bad. I didn’t know that, but it seemed everybody else on this mountain knew. No one would help her cause they was all afraid.” His look was cool.
“Sounds like self-defense to me. But you know a sheriff can’t do a whole lot about a husband beating on his wife. That’s a private affair. It would never have held up in a court.” He held his hands out. “She did herself and the whole mountain a favor by putting a end to him. I’d just like to know how she did it. How in the world did she cut his head off, Jack? Pritchard would never have stood by and let that happen to him.”
“Maybe he was drunk.” Jack said this in his quiet manner.
“Yep, but then that is plain-out premeditated cold blood.”
“You’re right about that.” Jack looked at me.
“Well, as far as I’m concerned the case is closed. We’ll never know and I ain’t going searching for a woman who may or may not be dead.” He nodded at the skull. “Put him to rest.”