The Ghosts of Varner Creek

  Sarah and I watched him as he crept to the back of Miss Thomas' house and into the back door. He had been in her home on a number of occasions. Whenever they came to town Annie liked to stop in and visit Miss Thomas and of course they’d had dinners here on a number of occasions. Pap knew where the guest room was and he snuck inside. The first thing he thought was that he'd get Marcus before it was the other way around. He must have brought that gun with him, he thought, and he started rummaging around the room. Sure enough, there under some underwear that had been folded and put by the nightstand was the Colt .45 Peacemaker. Pap grabbed it and opened it up. No bullets. They weren't far, though. He spotted them near the traveling pack Marcus had brought with him and proceeded to load the gun. Now, what, he thought. Sarah and I watched it all like a living picture show. Pap sat on the bed and his mind began to wander. His emotions were like butter being churned over and over. He was scared of being caught and having to explain things. Even if Mama hadn’t told Uncle Marcus, then everyone would just think he’d killed Sarah. Either way, he was in bad trouble with no way out. He thought about all the things that’d happened to get him to this spot. So he’d shoot Marcus, what good would that do? Even if he did manage to get away and run, the sheriff would have a posse after him, and when they caught him, he’d still die. He’d buried himself, he realized. All those sins had buried him. No good, went his thoughts, I ain't never been no good.

  While Pap’s mind raced we disappeared. Sarah was moving us to a new place, and it took me a moment to recognize the sheriff's office where Uncle Marcus, the sheriff, and Uncle Colby were all sitting. He'd just been told about them finding Sarah's body. "There's something you ought to know, also, Marcus," said the Sheriff. "Colby here found out same time I did, but I don't think it's anything that bears too much repeatin' outside this here room."

  "What?" asked Marcus.

  Sheriff Covell sighed deeply, "Doc Wilkins say that little girl was pregnant when she was killed."

  "Pregnant?" said Marcus. "How could she be pregnant?” Nobody answered. “Who’d get her pregnant?!” he demanded.

  Colby and the sheriff both looked at each other and then the floor. "Dunno," said Colby, "But seem to me most likely . . ." He couldn't finish it. It was bad enough just thinking it.

  The sheriff summed it up. “I reckon we might know now why Abram’s done what he’s done.”

  Marcus' face went first white, then blood red and his blue eyes seemed to shine with rage. It was too much. He couldn’t have. What father could . . . but it made sense. Annie found out and he killed her for it. He killed them both. He looked at the sheriff and told him flat out, "I'm going to kill him."

  The sheriff took the words in slowly, "I know. I've been looking for him, but ain't nobody seen hide nor hair since this morning. I tell you truly, though, Marcus, if I find him, it's my job to bring him in without any harm if I can, not that’ll it do him good for long, you understand, but it’s my job." He lowered his voice a bit, though, so if anyone was listening in from outside they wouldn't hear. "Now normally I’d have to tell you to sit at home and not take matters into your hands,” Marcus’s eyes were cutting through the sheriff as he heard this last statement, but the sheriff raised his hand a bit as if to say he wasn’t done yet, “But I know you ain’t gonna do that givin’ what all that’s happened. And the truth is it might be easier for everyone if you did find him first. I’m not sure we need everyone in town learning all the sordid details, if you catch my meaning. So, I’ll tell you what I can do, Marcus. If you do find him first, it'll be self-defense so far as I'm concerned. No matter what really happens, I'll call it self defense, but that's about as much as I can do being a law man and all."

  "That's enough," said Marcus.

  Uncle Colby looked like he wanted to protest, but the knowledge that Pap had probably been the one to get Sarah pregnant was enough to silence him. It was out of his hands now, and he knew it. Pap was going to die one way or the other.

  The sheriff picked up something off his desk and handed it to Marcus, “They found this with the body when they got all that wire off her,” he said, passing it to Marcus who held it up a bit like Miss Thomas had done not so long ago.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  Uncle Colby had been sitting quietly up to this point, but he looked up at what Marcus had in his hands and said, “That’s what Abram done give Sarah for her birthday.” And so it was the same little castle he’d placed in her hands the night she died.

  Uncle Marcus held on to it and said, “I’ll make sure to return it to him,” and then walked out.

  And then Sarah and I were back in Marcus’ room. We heard the front door slam. So did Pap. He walked around to the very back of the room, behind the bed and away from the door. When Marcus walked in Pap had the gun on him.

  I could feel Pap’s anxiety and Uncle Marcus’ shock. He hadn’t expected Pap to come into town, let alone be in his room holding his own gun. "You," he said. He started forward as though he'd rip Pap apart then and there.

  "Don’t move, now!" yelled Pap, and he clicked the gun back. Marcus was close enough that he could see the bullets were loaded. He was tempted to keep going anyway, consequences be damned. He wanted this man dead more than anything, but he thought of Mary Jo and the children. It wasn't fair to do that to them, he told himself, so he stopped.

  "Real man, aren't yah?" he asked Pap. "Sleeping with your retarded daughter, knocking her up and then killing her." He wanted to lunge at Pap so bad he was shaking. But he didn't do it. He was thinking of his own family, and despite his fury he didn’t want to leave them without a husband and father.

  Pap's mind, on the other had, was rattled with confusion. His emotions were like a jigsaw puzzle someone had just tipped out of the box. He was the one with the gun but he was terrified. He wasn’t feeling that sense of anger I’d of expected from him in this position, and didn’t seem to really want to shoot Marcus anymore. Pap was just scared. He knew he had reached the end of his rope and didn’t want to have to face up to it.

  "I don’t know what you’re talking about," he tried to tell Uncle Marcus.

  “Oh no?” Uncle Marcus tossed the castle he still had in his hands on the bed, and Pap’s eyes stared at it with terrible resignation. It was over. Everybody knew what he’d done. "You murdered my sister, too, didn't yah?" Uncle Marcus asked Pap. "Where is she? What'd you do with her!?"

  Pap was still staring at the castle. He didn’t know what happened to Mama, but he figured she’d gone off somewhere to die. She’d lost her wits that night, and if she hadn’t gone to Galveston, she either died on the way or killed herself. And I knew Pap felt the burden on his shoulders. He felt all of it at that moment. It was his fault, all of it. ”Reckon I did kill'em both," he told Marcus. "I just ain't never been no good." He looked at Marcus and remembered Mama’s words from that night. “The devil’s waited long enough,” he told Uncle Marcus, and with that, he put the gun to his own temple and pulled the trigger. I closed my eyes with the sound of the gun, like a crack of lightning during a bad storm, and when I opened them again, Sarah was still holding my hand and we were back at the creek. I looked at her and wondered what she’d thought when she first saw him end his own life.

  "And Pap went into the dark place?" I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “but it’s different for him. He’s in his memories, and they’re a bad place.”

  “He can’t come here?”

  “He has to let go,” she says. “Daddy’s still angry, and he can’t come here until he stops being mad at everyone, even himself. Like Mama, she’s in the dark place, too, because she can’t forgive and can’t forget. ”

  I saw her again, being swallowed by the night in the wagon. “How did she die?” I ask Sarah. It’s the last piece I’m missing, and Sarah has already taught me how to find it. I concentrate on the question and Sarah comes with me.

  Chapter 18

  One last scene changed. Lilipeg walked along, flicking at the
bugs that kept chewing on her. It was a rough ride as Mama had long since left the road. Her mind was blank and the morning sun gave her no cheer. We sat with her, in the wagon, as Lilipeg pulled us along. Mama’s emotions were chaotic, like a house being pulled down, board by board, nail by nail. Marcus, a fragmented thought murmured, he'd save me. She wasn't sure where Galveston was, but knew it was south where the land met the ocean. She'd never seen the ocean and wondered if it was really as big as Candace has told her about in her letters. The edge of the world, she thought to herself. That's what Candace had called it. 'When you look out over the horizon and see nothing but the ocean all the way until you can't see anymore, it's like looking out at the edge of the world.' That's where Mama wanted to be. It was easy enough to stay south, just keep the morning sun to her left and when it set on her right, and eventually she'd find it. I thought I could sense her thinking that it was where her salvation lied, but then I realize no, not salvation, just an end. Mama believed it was too late for salvation.

  I grieved for her. "She's in such pain," I told Sarah.

  “Mama’s real sad,” she tells me. “She won’t forgive herself for what she did to me, and I can’t tell her it’s okay because she’s hiding.”

  Time progressed ahead and I saw Mama sleeping in the wagon, Lilipeg still attached but having a little bit of grass. There wasn't anyone else around. Mama was staying clear of any place that looked like there might be people. I knew she didn’t want people to see her sins. The next day she came to thick woods. South was still ahead through them, so she unstrapped Lilipeg. She hadn't eaten anything but did drink from some of the water they had come to. After unhitching the wagon, she climbed up on Lilipeg bareback. She had never ridden a horse bareback like that, but Lilipeg was gentle and didn't mind. So Mama left the wagon and there on the edge of the trees. It'd be found a few days later by a man out hunting, and he'd take it home with him. Mama didn't care about material things anymore, anyway. Let them be scattered to winds. South, said her thoughts, keep going south.

  The next night she tied Lilipeg to a nearby tree and slept on the ground next to her, but she was up again and moving before the light. Her thoughts were like the drums of old when ships were at sea and someone pounded out the rhythm for the slave rowers. South, south, south, boom, boom, boom.

  It took Mama three days to reach the ocean and when she did she was a very long way from Galveston. It was many miles East of where she found the sea. It was midday when she crossed over some sandy dunes and saw it stretched out before her. Sarah and I were there, our feet in the sand as the waves caressed them. Mama climbed off Lilipeg and in a daze stumbled towards the water's edge. Lilipeg walked off to find some grass to eat. Mama walked into the ocean up to her knees and marveled at the sight. The sun danced off the water in the distance, glittering in a way she’d never seen water do. The waves were small and calm, breaking white around her legs as the tide went out. As the ocean's water swirled around her she felt the sand beneath her toes give and the current sucking at her ankles. Yes, she thought, it was like Candace had described. It was like looking at the edge of the world. And she walked forward, hoping to walk right off the world itself, and in a way she did.

  Mama had never learned how to swim, but she kept walking towards the horizon, towards the end. The ocean swallowed her and she let it sweep her away. She had drowned her daughter, and now she herself would be drowned. The last thing I could feel from her was the thought that this was a righteous punishment. And then there was no more from her.

  It was so sad how Mama had chosen to end her life, but I understood what was in her thoughts as she did it. I knew she had forsaken all hope and only wanted to escape the pain in her heart.

  "And she’s in the dark place, too?” I asked Sarah, already knowing the answer.

  "Yes, because she wants to be. She went looking for you, though. I saw her when you died.”

  “When I died?” I thought about all I’d been shown, and it seemed to make sense how Sarah had known I was passing from the world and able to reach me before I’d even made it to the light. We’d shared something special during those days when she was in the darkness, and I knew our bond had held us together. I didn’t know what she meant by seeing Mama, though.

  "When you died,” said Sarah, “She was there in the in-between place. You saw her, too."

  And then I remembered. "The woman?" I ask. "The one with no face?"

  "Mama," says Sarah.

  “But she had no face,” I say.

  "Mama’s hiding,” she tells me again. And then I thought about the shiny black hair the woman had. I knew it had been familiar, but just didn’t think to place it. She had hair like I remembered Mama having. And the blur where the face should be, that was Mama’ mask of shame, guilt, and her despair. Sarah was right, Mama was hiding from what she did and didn’t want me knowing it was her.

  "Do you think she will ever come here?" I ask Sarah.

  "I don't know. It's her choice. Even Daddy could come if he wanted. I don’t think we’re ever supposed to stay in the dark place for always.”

  And I knew what she meant. They could come here if they’d learn to let go, to forgive themselves and let the past be past. But if they can’t let go of the memories that are haunting them, then they’ll always be in the dark place, ghosts themselves, ghosts of Varner Creek.

  Sarah looks at me deeply, through the mirage of the bodily image and straight to the soul that is all I am, and I can see hers, too, there just beneath the surface of the girl I see. It is light, sound, memories, emotions, an entire universe in itself.

  “No,” I say, “I guess no one is ever meant to stay in the dark forever." Sarah embraces me tightly, kissing my boyish cheek. "I’m glad you’re here, now. I was never lonely here, but I’ve missed you.”

  “I missed you, too,” I say.

  She looks to me with a smile and says, “And you’ve missed other people, too.” She gives me one more hug and says, “I know. I have to go now, but we can see each other any time we want.”

  "What?" I ask. "No, not yet. Where are you going?"

  “She let me say hi first because it’s been so long, but I know she can’t wait anymore. You can find me when you want, but someone else is waiting for you."

  And then she is gone. The sand beneath my toes, the ocean in front of me, and the sky above, it all fades again. Nothing remains but the bright light I had first seen. Then I see someone start coming towards me. I sense her happiness and am filled with joy as I begin to suspect who it is. Her hair is the loveliest copper color, her eyes green and her smile heart stopping. "Hello, husband," she says to me.

  Author’s Note: I hope you enjoyed The Ghosts of Varner Creek. If you did, please let me know by leaving a review or comment on the site from which you found the book. And thank you for reading. Below is the opening for my second book, Border Crossings, also now avilable in ebook format everywhere they are sold.

  BONUS

  PROLOGUE TO BORDER CROSSINGS,

  Michael Weems’ Second Novel

  Prologue

  The afternoon lay quiet except for the crunch of dirt beneath tires on an old worn out trail. A white and green Ford Explorer bounced along the dirt road, kicking up the desert floor and scattering it to the wind. In the passenger seat a young man’s hazel eyes peered out from under the shadow of his green ball cap towards the searing sun. “Awful hot,” he said. It was more a premonition than a comment on the weather.

  In the driver seat sat a squat man, brown-skinned with a wispy mustache that flickered with the air blowing in on high through the vents. He raced along the road with an eerie calm of someone right at home despite being so consistently close to a cataclysmic crash at any second, skipping and sliding the suv around each bend like a seasoned drift racer. He glanced down at the temperature gauge on the dashboard - 94 degrees. It could be well over 150 degrees in a confined metal space, making it an oversized oven. “Yeah,” he agreed, “May already be dead.” He reache
d in his shirt pocket and pulled out a well-worn toothpick and placed it between his teeth as he continued slipping along.

  In front of them, Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas at an elevation of 8,749 ft, rose up in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Before them lay the dirt road designated for 4 X 4 vehicles only, and somewhere out in the canyon region sat an abandoned metal trailer which had six young women locked inside and left for dead.

  As they passed a campground sign the ranger in the passenger seat pulled the crudely drawn map from his shirt pocket, a fax they’d received not ten minutes ago. He matched up the line drawn on the map with a trail he saw ahead. “There,” he pointed. “That’s it.” The SUV made a sharp turn that sent him sloshing against the door while the driver barely shifted his weight. They turned on an offshoot where a sign that read “No Vehicles Beyond This Point” sat crooked on an old post protesting the trespass and a few of the park’s smaller inhabitants scurried out of the way of the charging Ford. A Gila monster sat flicking its tongue on a rock, curiously watching the great green and white beast roar past him.