by Blythe Baker
I was a little different. I didn’t have a specific direction when I left for college. I had always enjoyed art and liked to draw, but it wasn’t until I was in school that I realized graphic design could even be a career option. My main focus in going to college was to get out of town and see someplace new. After I graduated, one of my first interviews was with a firm in New York and I had jumped at the chance to move to the city. It was everything I had dreamed about. Sure, it was busy and crowded, and there was a conspicuous lack of green space. Still, I enjoyed my job, my apartment, and my friends.
Being back home, though, I was starting to wonder if I had made the right choice. My friends in New York were fun, but they didn’t know me like my friends here. We had grown up together. We had weathered broken bones and broken hearts together. All for one, and one for all.
My wandering thoughts returned to the present, as we pulled alongside the road and parked next to a little footpath that lead over to Ford’s Cross. The small lake was on a piece of property that was owned by the Ford family in the nineteenth century.
According to folklore, the Fords were part of the Underground Railroad, and anyone who could cross the narrow, shallow part of the lake and make it to the barn at the back of the homestead would receive help. The Fords had family in Cairo, which bordered the free state of Illinois, and would give food, shelter, and directions to those who needed their help. Thus the small lake came to be known as Ford’s Cross. That was one thing that was interesting about Hillbilly Hollow– everywhere you turned there was history.
Billy grabbed the poles and bait from the back of the truck, and handed me a small, soft-sided cooler.
“What’s in here?” I asked, holding up the cooler as I followed him down the path.
“You’ll see.” He laughed and picked up the pace. “Hurry up, Emma. We’re burnin’ daylight.”
We found the spot where some rocks and an old felled tree jutted out over the water, and started fishing.
We spent the next couple of hours fishing. We talked some, but mostly just enjoyed being outside on a beautiful afternoon. Billy caught a blue catfish and a couple of smallmouth Bass. I didn’t manage to catch anything other than an empty pop bottle.
Billy pulled together a few twigs and branches to make a small fire, and used the fire steel on his keychain to start it.
“Dinner?” he asked, holding up the cooler.
“Sure!”
He found a large, flat-ish rock and set it in the middle of the fire, then took a packet of foil from the cooler and set it on the rock. Within about fifteen minutes, we were eating fried chicken, along with some potato salad from a couple of plastic containers.
“So, did I tell you I joined the historical society?” I asked.
“No! Wow. If your New York friends could see you in a prairie dress and bonnet!” He laughed. “So does that mean you’re sticking around for a while?” His eyes were a mixture of surprise and hopefulness.
“Well, ya know, you guys missed me an awful lot, so I thought I’d better.” I laughed. “Although, it’s sure not the hometown I thought I was coming back to with a murderer on the loose. Tucker came by Suzy’s shop while I was there and put up a flyer – like the one I saw in your clinic window. Anyway, he didn’t seem to have much of a clue where to start.”
Billy finished chewing his bite of chicken and took a chug from one of the bottled waters he had brought.
“Come on, Emma. When has Tuck ever had much of a clue about anything other than running a football down the field, or catching an outfield fly?”
“Hmm, jealous of the star athlete much?” I raised an eyebrow at him playfully.
“That dufus? Heck, no! I’ll take my brain over his brawn any day.” He smiled smugly.
“Well, you’re not that skinny kid anymore yourself, Billy. You’ve got plenty of brawn to go with that big ol’ brain of yours.” I smiled coyly.
He laughed and shook his head. “Well, all I know is if we’re waiting for Tucker to figure out who the killer is, we’ll be waiting until we’re old and gray. I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to imagine anyone we know being capable of that. Do you suppose it could’ve been a stranger? Someone passing through?”
“I guess, but to what end? Why would a stranger randomly stop by the old fort looking for…what? Someone to rob? Or someone to murder? No, I don’t think so. You said he was strangled with a haversack strap. He wasn’t shot – shooting is impersonal. To strangle someone, I mean…”
Billy wore an unbuttoned long-sleeved shirt over his t-shirt. I reached up and grabbed both sides of the collar and held them together. “I mean, look how close you’d have to be to kill someone that way.”
“You’ve been watching too many cop shows.” He chuckled. “You’re right – it does seem personal, but you’ve got it wrong. Here, I’ll show you. Turn around.”
I turned my back to him, and he took a dishtowel from the cooler, and twisted it into a rope-like shape.
“It was like this,” he said. He took one end of the towel in each hand, and carefully looped it over my head, then pulled the ends together at the back of my neck and pulled down.
“Leverage – like this, see?” He tugged on it gently.
A shiver ran down my spine. For a brief second, I had a glimpse of what it must have been like to be Preacher Jacob in his final moments.
“You okay?” Billy asked, releasing one end of the towel, and putting a hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Oh, no, of course not. Just…what’s that saying? Someone walking over my grave?”
We sat there a little while longer, until the lightning bugs were dancing in the evening sky. Then we doused the campfire, and piled everything back into the truck, including Billy’s fish and my pop bottle for the recycling bin.
Then we drove back to my grandparents’ farm.
Billy hopped out of the truck and walked me to the front door.
“Listen, I know you’re just as interested as everyone else in finding out what happened to Preacher Jacob, but…whoever did this surely doesn’t wanna be found out, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. Just promise me you’ll be careful?”
“I promise. Don’t worry – unless they’re driving a taxi, I think I’ll be alright.” I pointed to the side of my scalp and shrugged. “Thanks for tonight. It was fun.”
“I had fun too.” He put his arms out, and I put mine around his neck to give him a hug. “This is a much better way for you to have your hands around my neck.” He laughed, and squeezed me tightly.
“Billy Stone, are you tryin’ to flirt with me?” I asked playfully as we stepped apart.
“Not many single girls in town, ya know. It’s pretty much you or Prudence Huffler, and you’re just that much cuter!” He pinched his thumb and forefinger together and winked as he turned to walk back to his truck.
“Whatever, Billy! If you’re gonna be like that I’ll start flirting with Larry Tucker! I hear he’s single!”
“Yeah, good luck with that!” he said sarcastically, throwing his hand up in the air as he opened his door. “Night, Emma!”
“Night, Billy.” I waved and went inside.
I got a glass of water from the tap in the kitchen, and as I stood at the sink, I couldn’t help but picture Preacher Jacob’s final moments. Billy had tugged down on the towel when he showed me what had happened. That had to mean the murderer was shorter than the victim.
I pulled out my phone and took a look at the memorial page on the historical society website again. I scrolled through several photos of Preacher Jacob with different townspeople. There were several in which Prudence was in the background, just a few feet away, at old fort days and a couple with Betty and other members of the historical society. I then came across one with Preacher Jacob in his cavalry officer’s uniform, standing next to Tucker in his sheriff’s uniform. Tucker was about six feet tall or maybe six-one, and in that photo, Preacher Jacob looked a little taller. Billy had ind
icated the strangulation came from behind and below.
Does that really mean the murderer had to be shorter than the victim or could there be some other reason for the angle?
I decided I should get ready for bed now that I was on country time, and brushed my teeth at the kitchen sink. I headed out back to the outhouse before I turned in for the night, with my furry little shadow, Snowball, in tow.
As we got about twenty-five feet from the outhouse itself, Snowball let out a short bleat, and lay down in the middle of the path as she had a couple of nights before.
I looked up ahead into the darkness at the edge of the woods behind the outhouse and couldn’t see anything out of the usual. I looked back at her.
“Snowball? What’s wrong?”
She stuck her tongue out at me. She was a pugnacious little goat.
I continued on toward the outhouse and, still seeing nothing unusual, I went inside and took care of business. Afterward, I walked out of the structure, closed the little wooden door, and crossed the yard to the back of the farmhouse.
As I glanced back the way I had just come, something out of the corner of my vision caught my attention.
I saw the same figure I had seen before, this time near the outhouse I had just left. The figure was bent over, as if it was fussing with something on the ground. Suddenly, its arms went up as if it was clutching at its throat. It thrashed back and forth, then fell to the ground. I took a step forward, and the figure rose, pointing emphatically toward the old fort.
I steeled my nerves and stepped even closer. I looked around to see if Grandpa or anyone else was outside, but it was just Snowball and me.
I cleared my throat, realizing that what I was about to do was either brave or crazy.
“Are you Preacher Jacob?” I asked softly.
The figure didn’t respond, but instead went through the entire pantomime again. Bent over, doing something on the floor, clutching at its throat, and falling over. Once again, it arose and pointed toward the fort emphatically.
“Do you – do you want me to go see something at the fort?” I asked.
It made a jerky movement that was more nodding its whole body forward than nodding its head and again pointed toward the fort.
“Okay, I think I understand.” I looked over my shoulder again. “I’ll try to help – I’ll do my best. But then you have to leave me alone. Do we have a deal?” As I said the last word, the ghost disappeared.
I’m not fluent in ghost speak, but I think that was an agreement.
I walked back down the path toward the house, and as I passed Snowball, she hopped up to join me.
“Well, Snowball, I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to have my doubts about this whole idea of these visions just being electrical impulses in my brain. Whadya reckon?”
She didn’t make a sound, but as I opened the back kitchen door, she rubbed up against my legs like a cat, then swatted at my leg with one small hoof.
I picked her up and took her up to the attic, where we turned in for the night.
Chapter 11
In the wee hours of the morning, a strange sound stirred me from my sleep.
The noise reminded me of the first apartment I’d had in New York, a place that had backed up to a row of restaurants and businesses. Neighborhood cats would gather near the dumpsters, looking for treats or rodents to catch. They would often sit atop the dumpsters and yowl to each other. The noise was, at least in my tired mind, something like that. Almost like a yowl, with a sound in the background that was almost like a person talking or singing. The sound was followed shortly after by the scrape of metal on metal.
One of the animals must’ve knocked over a bucket. That or one of the gutters is loose. I’ll have Grandpa check it tomorrow, I thought groggily as I drifted back off to sleep.
Later in the morning, I was helping Grandpa bale hay, when my phone buzzed in my pocket.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hello, Ms. Hooper? This is Kara calling from National Airlines. I have some great news about your bag,” the voice on the other end said cheerily.
“Finally! Is it being delivered?” I asked.
“Unfortunately,” she began and I cut her off.
“Please don’t. Don’t say unfortunately again. Where is it now? Miami? Portland? Timbuktu?” I asked, incredulous that I could still be without my luggage.
“Oh no, ma’am! It’s in Branson! Unfortunately, our delivery driver has a bad case of food poisoning, so he can’t bring it to you. If you’d like to come get it, though…”
I cut her off, but this time, with enthusiasm instead of frustration. “Yes! I’ll come get it right away. Just tell me where I should go.” I put the phone on speaker, much to Grandpa’s dismay, and used the notes app to record the instructions. After I hung up, I excitedly told him, “They’ve found my bag and I need to go to Branson to get it.”
“You go on ahead, then. I know you’ve been waitin’ a while for that thing to show up. I’ll finish up here,” Grandpa replied.
“Thanks, Grandpa!” I said enthusiastically before running into the house to change.
After I got cleaned up, I made the hour-long drive down to Branson. I arrived at the airport, and found the lost luggage office at the back of the space by the baggage carousels where I had initially looked for my bag when I landed a few nights before.
There was a couple standing in the tiny lost baggage office of National Airlines with four children in tow, two of whom were screaming their lungs out. I decided to stand near the carousel and wait for them to clear out.
As I was standing against the wall, a gaggle of passengers approached the luggage carousel near me, apparently from a flight that has just landed. One of them was a huge man with long, black hair and a long beard to match. He was tan and clearly looked a bit too old for ebony to be his natural hair color. His voice boomed as he spoke to the man next to him. Both of them wore jeans, button-down shirts, sport coats, and cowboy boots. The larger man had on sunglasses, and a straw cowboy hat with a huge spray of feathers at the front. As he was speaking, I finally recognized him as the lead singer of Ozark Mountain Lightning, a five-man country band that was popular in the 90s. They were famous for their melodic harmonies, and they had a huge crossover hit with the upbeat song, Hello Suzy Q. It was the same song we used to torture Suzy with when we were young.
As I looked around at the airport signs, it occurred to me that a lot of the big country acts from decades past had set up residences in Branson. It was, after all, the Vegas of the Ozarks. Seeing that the family was still animatedly talking to the National Airlines rep in the office, I thought I’d distract myself with a little B-list celebrity eavesdropping. I stepped closer to get a better angle from which to hear.
“So anyway, Danny, and let me tell ya, this man was serious, I mean serious as a heart attack,” the singer, whose name I couldn’t remember at the time, said to his friend. “And he looks me right in the eye and says, ‘I swear it on my Mama’s grave, that’s the truth.’ I mean, can you believe that?”
“So Don,” the other man began to speak.
Don Clark! That’s him, I remembered.
“Now, Don, I just don’t know if I believe in all that! You’re telling me this fella got hit in the head with a softball at his daughter’s game, and after that, he started seeing ghosts?” As the man shook his head, continuing the conversation, my stomach wrenched into a knot. I stepped back a little, leaning against the wall.
What if this is…really a thing? Maybe that accident really did trigger something in my brain after all, I thought. Maybe I should talk to Billy about it? He knows me – he knows I’m normally a stable person.
I saw the family with the stair-stepped children finally leave the baggage office, so I went in to claim my bag. I was beyond relieved to see my giant purple suitcase sitting in the back room.
After showing my ID and signing a form, I received my bag and headed back to the farm.
The man’s
words from the airport kept ringing in my ears. Hit in the head…started seeing ghosts. I knew I had to see if I could get online and do some research on this when I got back.
As I got off the highway that connected Elmore, where the interstate exit was, to Hillbilly Hollow, my phone buzzed. I pulled into a gas station to answer it.
“Hello, Emma! This is Betty Blackwood. I have some very good news for you! The other board members have agreed to accept your membership into the historical society!” She said it with a lilt in her voice as if I’d just won a major award.
“Oh, that is great news, thank you so much,” I replied, knowing I’d done so less enthusiastically than she wanted me to.
“Well, if you could come by this afternoon, you can pick up your orientation package. There’s a lot about the fort’s history, and the town’s, that you’ll need to know so you can get started.”
“Oh, of course. I’ll be in town anyway for the vigil,” I replied.
“Mm, of course. How could I forget? We’ll see you soon then, Emma. Welcome to the society!” She hung up the phone abruptly.
My luggage was in the back of the crew cab of the truck and it was getting late, so I decided to head on into town and grab a bite to eat at the Hollow Diner after I picked up my paperwork. The truck I was driving was the old farm truck. Grandpa still had the new farm truck and Grandma’s car at the house so they’d drive down for the vigil on their own.
I stopped by the historical society and saw Betty for my paperwork. I was surprised to learn that there was an actual swearing in that went along with the signed document and pin.
Serious business, indeed.
Betty told me I could go to the fort the following day and see Richard Littman, and he would give me the tour and go over some of the points of interest.
I knew Mr. Littman. He was maybe a few years younger than my grandparents. He used to own the bookstore in town, but he retired when I was in high school and sold it to the Chapmans, who bulldozed it and put up a gas station in its place. Mr. Littman’s house was not too far from Billy’s place in town, and I remembered that when I was a little girl he gave out the best Halloween candy. Mostly, though, I liked him because whenever he saw me, he didn’t give me a look of pity about losing my parents. Instead, he would tell me funny or silly stories about when they were young. People didn’t know how to treat a child whose whole world had just imploded, but Mr. Littman was more intuitive than most people. I couldn’t wait to see him.