The Ghosts of Varner Creek

  The next morning broke out in a ruckus of crowing. It was like the two outside were having a competition. Aunt Emma and Uncle Colby's family rooster let out his routine morning cry, only to be severely outdone in volume and intensity by Lucifer the Leghorn. And remarkably, when Uncle Colby spread out the morning corn and mash for the chickens on his way out to work, there seemed to be a number of more additions. Hens they'd never seen before came scratching and pecking along just like the ones that had been born and raised there. Uncle Colby went back inside and fetched Aunt Emma. "What in the world?" she said when she came out the back door. "Where'd they come from?"

  George and I came out and recognized them immediately, "They're the ones from the woods," George said.

  "Well, what in the Sam hell are they doing here?" she asked.

  "Reckon they heard him hollering," Uncle Colby said, gesturing towards the extremely perturbed rooster in the pen. "I heard him all the way from the fields yesterday. I don't wonder that they did, too."

  "Well, God bless," said Aunt Emma, "Ain't no telling what infestations they done brought with them." But she seemed pleased at suddenly having a dozen more full size hens to get eggs from. She threw together some concoction to kill whatever the wild chickens had spread to her good ones, as she was convinced they had, and as they pecked away at the ground she ran around singing, “Here, chick, chick, chick . . . here chick,” trying to douse all of them, hers and the new ones, with the powder. Even after Uncle Colby took Lucifer the Leghorn out of the pen, earning himself some deep scratches in the process, the hens stayed at Aunt Emma's house from that day forward. I guess the easy food was too much temptation to leave even after their great leader disappeared yet again.

  Uncle Colby took Lucifer the Leghorn to Mr. Pyle, and the present only served to deepen his good graces. "That's the finest cock-fighting rooster I did ever see," he told Uncle Colby.

  And from that day on, Lucifer the Leghorn became known as Pyle's Pride. He fought thirty-two cock-fights in his life, at least official ones with bets and all, there was no telling how many he truly fought in his life, and he won every one of them. People talked about that rooster, years after he was gone. And whenever a particularly large and fierce rooster fought and won, someone would say, "Like Pyle's Pride that one is." And pride is exactly what the rooster gave Mr. Pyle until the end of his own days. He always seemed to walk around with a little smile, privately enjoying the thought of the next cockfight and his impending victories.

  Chapter 11

  After the experience with the chickens I’d started feeling better about Uncle Marcus. He was still a stranger to me, but now that he’d managed to reach heroism in my eyes, I was less intimidated by him. If he’d of pulled me aside to ask me about things again, I would have at least told him my suspicions, even if not the reason for them. As it was, though, Uncle Marcus wasn’t around after that day.

  I hadn't heard much about Pap during the past weeks up until Pyle's Pride began his new life of glory. Aunt Emma had told me Uncle Marcus hadn't visited Pap and didn't want anyone to mention to Pap that he was in town. It seemed peculiar to me, though, seeing how Uncle Marcus was willing to question everyone except Pap, the one person who might actually know something he wasn’t sharing, but I didn't know anything of their history together, yet.

  A few days after Uncle Marcus had come to Varner Creek he left again. Not for good, though. He took the midday train that went back up to Houston on that day, some travel once there. He wanted to see if maybe Mama had gone to Houston and he might find her. Perhaps she had gone there to catch a train to Galveston, he thought. Maybe she even forgot he didn't live there anymore and was up there looking for him.

  Once there he sent a message to his wife, Mary Jo, via telegram. There was the phone system, the state's first line being from Houston to Galveston back in 1883, but he wasn't fond of phones with everybody listening to everybody, so he didn't have one at home. Instead, he liked the tried and true method of telegrams. He knew he'd have to get a phone sooner or later, though, because Mary Jo and the kids were complaining about living in the dark ages, but he’d just as soon put it off as long as possible.

  He had told his wife to expect the message on that day and wanted to know if she had heard anything from Annie. By this time we had a station in Varner Creek, too, but he mainly made the trip to look around the city for Mama and Sarah, just in case. He went by the telegram station and then and had an early supper in a nearby restaurant. The telegram station was still open when he finished and there was a return message waiting for him:

  Sister not here. (Stop) No news. (Stop) Will send word if changes. (Stop) When will you return? (Stop) Love, Mary Jo. (Stop)

  He read the message and crumpled it in frustration. He had been hoping Annie arrived just after he left and his concerns had been completely unjustified, but he knew his wife would have sent word to Varner Creek if that had been the case, and his worries were mounting. After reading the telegram he began going over the possibilities again in his mind. Did Annie make a fresh start somewhere else? No, if so she still would have written Emma, at least. And leaving her son behind was not the sister he had known in childhood. So what else could it be? If Abram had done something to her and was trying to cover it up, he was doing a remarkable job. He couldn't have just stashed the horse and wagon somewhere. By now somebody would have noticed, unless he manage to sell them in a town nearby and gotten rid of Annie and Sarah's belongings. But if he had finally crossed the line with Annie, what about Sarah? Things just weren't adding up. What was he missing? Annie didn't just fall off the face of the earth. Where was she? Why hadn't anybody heard from her in over three weeks? He knew he couldn't stay in Varner Creek forever. He had a family at home and work that needed to be done. He had always been frugal and had plenty of money saved, but every day he was gone was a day he risked his reputation with the railroad company and the others in town who came to him for specialty items. He had spent years building up a reputation as a reliable and excellent craftsman. He’d be doing wrong as a provider for his own family by turning his back on that reputation. Still, he blamed himself for the situation. He remembered his own father being content just to have the kids gone as soon as possible. He felt like it had fallen to him to protect his sister from making the mistakes that had led to this, and he had failed her. And even now, their own mother was practically disinterested in the mysterious disappearance of her middle daughter. She was worried and wanted word of events, but all her attention and devotion was placed on her grandchildren, both Marcus' and Candace's, who had married an architect there in Galveston the year before, 1908, and just had her first baby. His were bright and beautiful children, proper and respectable, the kind of children Mrs. Stotley had always wanted. She was worried for Annie, but she’d always felt like her two daughters had done wrong in the eyes of the Lord, and that kept her at a distance.

  Marcus contemplated all these things as the telegram operator attempted to politely encourage him to leave. It was dusk and time to close the office. "Had a bite to eat at the inn, eh?" he asked Marcus, "Reckon I'm ready to get home and do the same. Been a long day." He smiled encouragingly at Marcus, who wasn't paying him much attention. "Well, sir? Anything else I can do for yah before I close up?" asked the man.

  "Yes," said Marcus, without much more attention than before, "Please send the following." And Uncle Marcus dictated a return telegram to his wife:

  Miss You. (Stop) But must sort things here. (Stop) Will return in a few days. (Stop)

  Marcus. (Stop)

  He wanted to tell his wife he loved her and for her to tell the children the same, but it wasn't in Marcus' nature to express such things to the stranger who was tapping out the telegram for him. He knew it went without saying, anyway. He and his wife had never been apart before now, not for more than a day or two, at most.

  Marcus stayed the night in a hotel and the next day rode Geronimo all around the city asking about Annie and Sarah. Nobody had seen a litt
le retarded girl with a woman at the train stations, or the hotels he went to, or the churches. He looked everywhere he could think to look but it was the same no matter where he went. "No, sir, haven't seen nobody like that," or "sorry, not been here." It was all the same chorus. A city full of people and yet to him it was an empty as a ghost town, because Annie and Sarah weren’t among them.

  As the next day ended he decided to go back to Varner Creek, but not to take the train. He'd follow a line of travel Annie might have taken if she had come this way in the wagon with Sarah. He'd check all the towns from here to there to see if anyone remembered their passing through. So thinking this, he left that very same evening.

  It'd take two days to get back if he stopped at all the towns on the way, but it was the last thing he could think to do. He'd camp out under the stars tonight. He wanted solitude to think as he slowly trotted out of the city. He had become accustomed to the modern things in the world. The telephones in the hotels and the automobiles here and there humming along the streets weren't the first he'd seen. Model T's were just now gaining popularity from the Ford Company, but Galveston always had the newest things. But as much as he was used to them, tonight he felt bothered by them all.

  There was something like a maggot in his stomach, a small thing, but one that was making him sick thinking about it moving around inside himself. It was a feeling of guilt eating at him from the inside. He had abandoned Annie to that man, he thought. He should have done more, but at the time he was so preoccupied with the metal working and courting Mary Jo that he had made the decision he would worry about his own life and let her worry about hers. If she was stupid enough to get mixed up with the likes of Abram Mayfield, let her, he had thought at the time. Now he was the one who felt stupid. Stupid and selfish, he admonished himself. He was the older brother and she was just a child at the time. He had failed her. If she did arrive in Galveston, he wouldn't give her the cold shoulder anymore, he told himself. He'd welcome her, Sarah, and Sol all in with open arms, even help them get their own home like he had done with mother and Candace. He'd take care of all of them, by God. If she came. If she was still okay and could come. The maggot in his stomach squirmed. He sat atop Geronimo at a trot, and then gave him a prod in the ribs so the horse took off into the night at full speed, away from the city, away from his guilt.

  All the next day he heard the same song he'd heard in Houston. Nobody had seen someone like that come through. She hadn't been here, they all said. It was like Annie and Sarah had fallen off the face of the Earth. And on the second day out from Houston, that last thirty miles that was the day's ride home, he'd hear it all again.

  Chapter 12

  My nights after Uncle Marcus first arrived at Aunt Emma's house passed without incident. Sarah did not visit me, and part of me was beginning to wish she would. If she and Mama were alive and well somewhere, just making a new life for themselves, then it would have meant I had imagined her face that night, her footprints beside my bed. It would mean that truly I had been left behind and Mama simply didn't want me in her life anymore. Maybe she looked at the son and saw the man who had robbed her of her innocence and hope. Was I my father's son? I had always thought of myself more like Mama, of course. I didn't see myself as having a mean streak. I never went into rages like him. But maybe it was there, hiding under the surface and she could see it when she looked at me. I couldn’t help questioning myself. I didn’t want to believe they were dead, but I didn’t want to believe she’d left me behind on purpose. There was just no way things were going to come out right, I thought.

  But on the night before Geronimo was walking those last thirty miles back to Varner Creek, my dreams were dark. Since things had been quiet again for a bit, George was back to sleeping peacefully. His deep breath was in rhythm and untroubled. I, too, fell into sleep easily enough, but as I slept I felt myself going into a dark place. I felt cold again, and scared and lonely. In my dreams I felt myself being placed somewhere under water. I could feel it creep in around me. It soaked in through my skin and wherever I was, something held me down, sinking me to the bottom. I felt my face against the silt as my body came to rest. When I opened my eyes I was face to face with Sarah. Again there was a dim green illumination, not a real light, but something manifested and unnatural. At first I didn't recognize the person next to me. All I could see was black hair swirling about a white fleshy face. The skin was nearly picked off her features and her eyes were hollowed out. There were no lips, only her teeth and the bottom of her jawbone poking out from spongy tissue. I noticed one of her front teeth was badly chipped, almost all the way down to the root. There was little human about what was in front of me, but as the light moved about her I could see, like an overlapping photograph, her face as I'd known slowly emerge. First came the eyes. From somewhere within the empty sockets they grew and appeared, their blue the only color except for the green shining in this black place. Lips came in, then flesh over the muscle of her cheeks, and then the face became animated. She had been lifelessly resting on the silt like me until then, but as she came back to herself, the neck twisted and the eyes opened to meet mine. I could feel her hand, the bony hand of a corpse at first, close around my own. As it did it became plump and real. She clenched me urgently and her lips made a word.

  “Sol,” they said.

  She was so happy to see me, and I felt happy, too. We were together again. We’d found each other in the blackness.

  As we held hands I felt her being pulled away from me again, and I held on tight to keep her with me. Her blue eyes pleaded with me and I was taken aback at how piercing they seemed. They had never had such expression. They had always been happy and somewhat oblivious. Now they were directed and keen. They were like Uncle Marcus' eyes when first I saw him sitting next to Aunt Emma.

  "Where are you?" I asked her. "I don't know where you've gone," I practically cried.

  She said something, her lips moving, but I had trouble making it out.

  I could feel myself losing her. "Where have you gone?" I asked. "Where's Mama?" Her eyes still pleaded with me. She was being pulled back into the darkness and didn’t want to go. I felt her fear like I felt the cold water about me, but as hard as I held on to her, I couldn’t keep her with me. “Sarah!” I said. “Sarah!”

  George woke me up. It was still night, but he was shoving me and calling out to me, "Sol, wake up!"

  It was like being pulled out of a hole by the back of your neck, a quick yank.

  Everything I had seen and felt was gone. Sarah was gone, the water, the green glow, nothing was here but the small room and George sitting up in the moonlight. "What?" I asked.

  "You were calling out to her in your sleep," he told me.

  "She was trying to tell me where she was," I told him.

  "Sarah?" he asked with a quiver in his voice. “She was here?”

  “I don’t think so,” I told him. “I think I was wherever she is this time.”

  “But you were here,” he told me. “You were just having a bad dream.”

  “I know,” I said. “But in my dreams I was wherever she is. I can’t tell it right, but I was with her even though I was still here.”

  “Where’s she at?” he asked.

  I thought about the place again, the black water. My hand felt clammy and I held it up to the moonlight that arched over the bed. The tips of my fingers were pruney as though I'd been sitting in a tub. It was somewhere very dark, where not even the faintest light by stars could reach, and somewhere under cold water. Then I had it. "I think I know where she is," I told him. “She’s at home,” I said. “She’s been there the whole time."

  The next morning after breakfast I pulled Uncle Colby aside. I waited until he was outside about to go to work and followed after him, "I think I gotta go home today," I told him.

  "Hmmm," he said, "I'm not sure that's such a good idea, Sol. Things ain't so good with your Pap just now. He ain't been showing up to work regular, and when he does, he’s been in an awful
mood. He’s taken to drinking more than usual. I done had to warn him Mr. Pyle’s gettin' unhappy with it, but I reckon it's hard having your Mama gone and people talking and all. I don't think your Aunt would be keen on the idea you moving back jus' now, neither."

  "I don't mean go back to stay there," I said. "I’ve been having feelings, lately." It was difficult figuring out just how to explain things so I didn't seem out of my gourd, "Been having dreams, you could say. I think sumthin’ bad done happened to Mama and Sarah."

  There was a look of awkward pity on his face like he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say or do, "Your Aunt done told me you’ve been thinkin' so. But I reckon ain't none of us should have them kinds of thoughts," he said.

  "It's not like that, Uncle Colby," I tried to explain. "I’ve been seeing Sarah. I mean really seeing her, like she's there. I think she's been trying to tell me something."

  Have you ever had somebody say something you just wished they had never said because it made you feel so uncomfortable you wanted to just run off and pretend you'd never heard it? That was Uncle Colby at that moment. He seemed to shift uneasily in his own skin before saying, "Not too sure what to say, Sol."

  "I know how it sounds, Uncle Colby. And I swear I ain't gone crazy or nothin’. I'm only tellin' yah 'cause I want you to come with me."

  "And do what?" he asked.

  "I think maybe Sarah's in our well at home," I told him. "I think she's there under the water."

  His eyes looked over me like he was taking measure and he shuffled his boots in the dirt for a bit, "Well, look here, Sol. It ain't that I think you're crazy, but maybe this has all been kind of hard for a young 'un," he said. It sounded like a no and he could see the disappointment in my eyes, which I guess had some affect. "But if it'll make you feel better, we'll go. I'll go with yah." Then he added quickly as though it had just struck him, "I don’t see a need to be telling your Aunt, though. Let's just you and me have us a look. I reckon your daddy will be in to work today, least he's 'sposed to, and I'll come home round noontime if he is and we'll go out there when he's not home. That way the sun'll be directly up and to our advantage."