by Ronald Kelly
Cindy peered over the edge of the tool chest lid. She saw the weaving circle of light and the gawky scarecrow of a man behind it. She wanted nothing more than to do as her mother and little brother did, to cower tearfully in numbing fear and await horrible death, perhaps praying to the Lord for salvation at the final moment of life. But she knew that she could not. Cindy knew that she had to do something, had to stop them some way. She certainly had the power to, if only she had the chance to conjure it up in time.
You killed Johnny! Her mind suddenly bristled in white-hot anger. She could feel a strange sensation welling up inside her now, a hatred so great and unrelenting that it both amazed and frightened her. You killed my brother Johnny and his friends and thought you could get away with it. Well, your murdering will end right here and now! I swear to God it will!
She focused her influence on Claude. She did not even try for Bully, for she knew the brutish man was much too stubborn and strong of will to be fooled. But Darnell ... he was different. The lanky fellow with the oily hair and buckteeth was mentally unstable, weak in terms of the mind. His consciousness would be simple to manipulate, easy to twist toward any illusion she wished to conjure.
And the image she created that night was the most horrible one she herself could imagine.
Claude advanced on the tool box. He hefted the hatchet in his hand, ready to use it if necessary. "I can see em, Bully," he called over his shoulder. A dark form stirred behind the meager shelter of the chest.
"Good. Now flush 'em out." Bully's eyes gleamed cruelly in the sparse moonlight. I'm gonna get that little redheaded bitch first. I'm gonna blow her freaking head off!
Claude took a couple of steps, then stopped in mid-stride. The beam of the flashlight trembled as his body shuddered in a great spasm of uncontained horror. His eyes grew wide and glassy. His knobby throat gurgled in constriction, and he nearly fainted dead away at the sight of what he had figured was Maudie and her two children.
What rose from the chill darkness behind the oblong box was the lean frame of a young man; a lanky boy of perhaps eighteen, his drab clothing streaked and stained dark with fresh rivulets of blood. Claude tried to pull his gaze from the apparition, but he could not. He found himself staring straight into the brutalized face of violent death, a pale, blood-streaked half of a face, a youthful handsome face that had once winked at the pretty girls and smiled that wry, good-natured smile.
It was Johnny . . . and he was coming for him.
A low moan expelled from Claude, growing in volume and intensity. Soon he was backing away, screaming at the top of his lungs. The hatchet swung blindly from side to side, frantically attempting to ward off the horrid thing that shuffled sluggishly toward him.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" growled Bully from behind.
But, as far as Claude was concerned, his friend no longer existed. The only thing that filled his consciousness, the only point of concern that pressed his childlike mind, was the gory specter that advanced on him. At least he figured it to be a ghost. It looked so solid, so very real, that it might be able to reach out and grab him at any moment.
That was when he stopped in his tracks, but not by his own choice. Something had halted him, had taken hold of his left shoulder and physically ended his horrified retreat. He shuddered at the touch of something on his shoulder, the limp cold weight of something long-since dead. He struggled to break free from its hold, but he could not. Claude was frozen to the spot. With a sniveling whimper, he began to turn his head. His skinny neck swiveled in small jerking motions, his huge eyes craning downward, ever downward toward the awful thing on his shoulder. He did not want to, but he had to look. Something made him look.
It was a hand… a pale, almost skeletal hand, speckled with fresh droplets of blood and bits of throbbing tissue. Slowly, almost imperceptively, the gruesome appendage began to change. It began to decompose before his very eyes, rotting away, the outer tissue giving way to stringy sinew, the festering meat budding with the pulsating bodies of a hundred maggots. When the flesh had finally putrefied and slid away, only bones remained. Stark white bones clutched at his shoulder, the joints crackling, the fingers digging painfully into his collarbone, drawing warm red blood. His blood!
Claude Darnell let out a scream… the awful tortured screech of a banshee. With a sudden surge of strength, he pulled away from the skeleton's hold. Grasping the hickory handle of the hatchet in both hands, he whirled. There was no stopping him. He brought the axe around in a mighty swing, intent on bringing its heavy blade crashing down upon the horrendous wraith who held him, the dead who had somehow returned to life, searching for retribution for ghastly crimes committed there so many months ago.
But it was not Johnny who received the brunt of Claude's desperate blow.
The thunderous report of a twelve gauge rolled across the frozen countryside. Clay heard it as he turned off the main highway onto the Brewer property and his heart leaped into his throat. With a curse, he looked over at his teenaged son and gunned the engine of the old truck. "Hang on, Josh. We're going right through those barn doors!"
The Ford gathered speed on the icy pathway that led from the boarded house to the barn. Out of control, it hurled toward the double doors. Clay and Josh ducked as the pickup crashed through weathered lumber, snapping the rusty logging chain cleanly in half and knocking both doors from their hinges.
Once the truck's tires found a grip on the earthen floor, Clay slammed on his brakes. The vehicle lurched to a stop in the center of the cavernous structure. The farmer leaped from the cab, leveling the pistol in both hands. Josh followed suit. The double-barreled Parker swept the musky interior, both hammers cocked.
Taylor White and Woody Sadler came running, their own firearms drawn, prepared to gun down the escaped felons. "Freeze, you two!" growled the sheriff. But when he rounded the fender of Clay's truck, he gaped in sudden shock. He let the muzzle of his revolver droop, then absently returned it to his holster.
No one fired a single shot. It was far too late for that. The twin lamps of the truck revealed a scene so unexpected that the four could only stare in bewilderment. It was the last thing any of them would have expected to find in the empty confines of the old barn.
Claude Darnell and Bully Hanson lay prone on the cold earthen floor. Both were dead. The ways of their demise were ghoulishly violent. Claude had nearly been cut in half by a shotgun blast. His midsection glistened where a huge, ugly wound replaced his abdomen. Chewed entrails and the stark white column of Claude's fractured spine could be seen, and they all looked away.
They then focused their attention on the other man. Bully Hanson had taken the full force of Claude's frantic swing through the top of his head. The big man's skull had been split open from bristled crewcut clear down to the bridge of his nose. Bully's eyes stared through a gory curtain of blood. They held not a look of puzzlement, but an expression of panicked realization. Perhaps the evil murderer had known what was taking place in that final moment when he grabbed Claude roughly by the shoulder. Perhaps he had seen the madness in his partner's eyes that fleeting second the hatchet had descended and had known precisely who was responsible for Claude's fit of terror. As the sharpened blade had crashed through his skull, his fingers had jerked spasmodically on the shotgun's trigger, thus ending the lives of both men in an instant of violent retribution.
Clayburn Biggs tucked the .45 in his belt and started past the ugly tangle of bodies. He walked toward the tool chest, toward his family who stood there tearfully. A great surge of relief filled him. Soon he was running. He embraced them, never wanting to let go. After the outpouring of emotion had settled, Clay turned to Cindy, who stood apart from the others.
"Are you all right, pumpkin?" Clay asked gently. The girl did not answer. She just stared, frightened and confused, at the bloodstained bodies of the men who had meant to do them harm. The child trembled uncontrollably, her hazel eyes suddenly brimming with tears.
Wrapping his coat around
her shivering form, Clay pulled his daughter close. The tears came freely, as well as the muffled cries of her remorse. "I'm sorry, Pappy! I didn't want to do it . . . but I had to. They would have killed us!"
"I know, baby," her father assured tenderly. "You did the only thing you could have done. Everything's all right now. You're safe."
Clay lifted his daughter into his arms and started for the truck, Maudie and Sam following silently. He halted before the Bedloe County sheriff, who still stood over the two bodies, not knowing exactly what to think. Clay looked Taylor White square in the eyes. "They killed each other, right?"
Both Taylor and Woody exchanged knowing glances. They looked at the victims of the double homicide, then eyed the sobbing child in Clay's arms. They decided to do the right thing, the decent thing, for if they had voiced their true suspicions beyond the drafty confines of that old barn, no one would have believed their story anyway.
"Certainly they killed each other," agreed the constable. "There's no two ways about it."
"They did themselves in, all right," echoed the storekeeper.
Silently, the two men watched as the Biggs family began to climb into the blue pickup truck and, with a clashing of gears, leave the horrid place. They stared into the night long after the truck's lights had faded. The grisly murder of a woman and her two children could have very well taken place that night, but the horrible evil had been thwarted. Something had turned killer against killer in the frigid shelter of the old tobacco barn. And, although it was difficult for either man to swallow, they knew exactly what had served as the catalyst.
The fatal weapon had been the simple mind of a child… a mind blessed with a precious gift from God.
Epilogue
Cynthia Ann returned home in November of 1956, as she did every Thanksgiving.
Usually the reunion was a time of festivity, a remembrance of the rural heritage she had known as a child. At noon there would be a spread of country cooking laid out on the dinner table: turkey, dressing, corn on the cob, and hot pumpkin pie for dessert. Later on, after an evening of hearty conversation, they would all ride into town. The rapid-fire pace of backwoods bluegrass music would drift invitingly from the high school gymnasium, and soon the square dance would begin. The varnished boards of the basketball court would thrum with activity until midnight and, on some occasions, clear into the early hours of the morning.
But on that Thanksgiving Day, however, the air of celebration was missing, and for good reason.
Cindy was going home to visit her father, perhaps for the last time in her life.
Much had happened since those latter days of the Great Depression. Clayburn Biggs had never found the chance to buy back his precious tobacco land, but he had found steady work at Pike's lumber mill in neighboring Galbreth County. Shortly afterward, Clay was offered the position of foreman, which he eagerly accepted. The money was good, what with military contracts being so plentiful during the Second World War. He worked there up until a few years ago, when his health began to fail him.
Cindy was a beautiful young woman of twenty-nine. She still possessed the freckles, the fiery red hair, and the eyes of hazel green. She was happily married to Richard Garrison, a service station mechanic. They had a comfortable life: a mortgaged home in Nashville, a '56 Chevy, and two boys, Rick and Kenny, ages eight and six.
Stormy autumn clouds hung low across the Tennessee sky like mats of filthy cotton, and a chilly breeze ruffled the dry brown grass as the Garrison family mounted the creaky front porch of the old Biggs homestead. Cindy gave her husband a little smile, a nervous smile that smacked of an underlying dread. Richard squeezed her arm gently in reassurance. Herding the kids ahead of her, they opened the front door and entered the dimly lit hallway. "You boys be quiet now," she told them firmly. "Your Grandpa is resting in the next room."
At the sound of the door closing, Maudie appeared from the kitchen, wiping flour from her hands with a dishcloth. "I'm so glad you could make it," she said. Her sad eyes, heavy with bags of age and worry, settled lovingly on her daughter. Maudie was still the stout woman she had been twenty years ago, but the erosion of time had taken its toll. Deep lines and crow's feet marked her face, and her hair, pulled tightly into a bun, was snow white in hue.
"How are you doing, big sister?" Sam smiled from over his mother's shoulder. Her baby brother was now a strapping young man decked out in the khaki uniform of a Bedloe County deputy.
"Just fine, Sam. How do you like the new job so far?"
"Oh, I'm getting the hang of it," said her brother. "It's pretty tame compared to Korea, but that's the way I like it."
Standing there in the musky hallway, they were gripped by an awkward silence. Two of the Biggs clan were not present. Polly had married a lawyer and moved to California. Their brother Josh had caught a German bullet during the D-Day invasion and died on Normandy Beach.
"Come on into the kitchen, boys," Sam called to his nephews. "I've got a new card trick that'll knock your socks off."
"Come on, Daddy." Rick and Kenny tugged on their father's hands, pulling him toward the bright and cheery kitchen.
"Go ahead, Richard." Maudie smiled. "I've got a pot of coffee on the stove."
"Never could resist a cup of your java, Maudie." The handsome mechanic winked. Then he was dragged from view by his anxious sons.
Mother and daughter looked at each other, then embraced. They clung to one another for a long moment, then Cindy studied her mother's melancholy eyes. "How's Pappy doing?"
"He's worse," Maudie told her truthfully. "The coughing spells are getting more frequent, more violent. I've worried myself sick trying to get him to go to the hospital, but you know your daddy's opinion of hospitals." The woman rummaged through her apron pocket and brought out a clean handkerchief. She handed it to her daughter. "He told me he wanted to see you as soon as you got here."
Cindy took the cloth offered her and nodded grimly. After her mother had left her alone in the hallway, she lifted the floral handkerchief to her nose and mouth, then went in, closing the door behind her.
The room was dark and stuffy. It smelled of sickness and medicine, of stale sheets and mildewed wallpaper. She stood, there in the shadows until a ragged fit of coughing drew her attention to the far side of the room. Her father lay in the big four-poster bed that he and Maudie had shared for over forty years. Quietly, Cindy crossed the room, pressing the handkerchief to her lower face. She fished beneath the drapes of a side window for the drawstrings that would open them.
"Leave them closed," rasped a feeble voice, hoarse with phlegm. "The light hurts my eyes."
"All right, Pappy." Cindy pulled up her mother's rocking chair and sat close to the bedside.
Eventually, the coughing spell ran its course. Clay hacked thickly into his own handkerchief, expelling bloody spittle into its folds. "Help me sit up, pumpkin," he requested.
She did as he asked. It took little effort to move him and arrange two feather pillows to support his gaunt frame. It hurt Cindy to see her father that way. Tuberculosis had hit him unexpectedly and without prior warning, taking his body by storm. As the disease progressed, he had lost much weight and most of his iron gray hair. The skin of his face, wrinkled beyond his years, seemed transparent and yellowed like parchment paper. His eyes, which once blazed a piercing blue, were now bloodshot and sunken in shadow.
They merely sat there in silence for a while, neither one knowing what to say. Both knew that the power of words had lost its importance long ago. Both knew that there were other things, other means of communication, that made the art of verbal conversation seem lackluster and trivial in comparison.
Cindy waited, seeing in her father's eyes the wish that had become so familiar to her. He had asked it of her again and again, especially since his illness, but it was one that she could never bear to grant.
His eyes, muddled and cloudy, settled on her own. "Cindy," he finally said. "Cindy, I want to remember. I want to remember it all."
Cynthia Ann felt choked up inside. With all her heart she wanted to deny his simple request. But she knew she could not this time. The time for denying was past. Her father was dying, and she was obliged to fulfill his final wish, even if it caused them both considerable pain.
"All right, Pappy," she said, smiling sadly behind the cloth of her hanky. She took his huge hand, the palms still hard with calluses from decades of back-breaking labor, in her own. Cindy cleared her mind of the clutter of present day thoughts and images. When she had prepared herself emotionally, the memories began to come freely, memories of the year that had hit them all the hardest. Clayburn stiffened, then settled into his pillows, his ravaged face relaxing.
Together they remembered.
1936. The year of her recovery from typhoid, the year that Johnny had left on a sunny May morning and whose body had been revealed by an unwilling act of hindsight on a sweltering July afternoon. They relived Johnny's funeral, Clay's hellacious attack on the woodpile, and Cindy's realization of the murderers' true identities on a blustery September day. The rageful brawl at the Bloody Bucket came next, followed by the October trial of Bully Hanson and Claude Darnell, the jury's verdict of guilty, and the suicide of Ransom Potts.
Then the retrospective grew more ominous and threatening in nature. They revisited that horrifying night in mid-December when there came the pounding of vengeful death upon the door, demanding to be let in. The explosive assault on the farmhouse, the terrifying chase into the snowy woods, and then the last-ditch refuge inside the old tobacco barn. Cornered behind the tool box, with Bully and Claude closing in for the kill, Cindy had worked her magic, as terrible and devastating as it had been, setting the two men against one another and destroying them with their own weapons.
Both father and daughter were in tears when their fingers finally separated. Shakily, Cindy rose from the rocker and tenderly tucked the sheets around her frail father. They exchanged a look of mutual understanding before Clay drifted into exhausted slumber. The year they had just explored had been the worst year of their lives. Yet, then again, in a very peculiar way, it had also been the best. All the tragedy, all the grief and violent anguish, had served a purpose. It had brought a rural tobacco farmer and his shy, nine-year-old daughter closer together. It had cemented the broken bond between them, a bond that would remain forever steadfast, even after the old man's passing.