Phantoms

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Phantoms Page 10

by Jack Cady


  "This is the day when government checks arrive." Tip seemed talking to himself. "Things might get pretty lively."

  "How can that happen?" It was an honest question. I didn’t see how anything could get very lively. We were, approximately, forty miles from nowhere.

  "These folks live off the land. They trap small game. Sometimes they have to dig roots." Tip was always in control, but he was angry. "Every month we send each of them a lousy thirty-two bucks. Minnie runs a tab. She cashes their checks. They pay up their owes, mostly for canned goods and liniment. Then they buy a pack of factory-made cigarettes, called tight rolls, and drink. One day a month they get to act like men who don’t scratch roots and roll tobacco in newsprint. Around here, that’s the main and only use of a beer joint."

  Electric lines from earlier days still ran into the hollow, but not to all the cabins. Here and there shelves of rock hovered above what looked like shallow caves. "The people dig out coal for heat," Tip told me. "At least the people who are not too old."

  When we turned off the road and up a rutted lane to Minnie’s Beer Store, Tip came off the gas. We coasted to a stop. "It looks," he said, "like we got ourselves a goddamn uprising."

  The store stood two stories, ramshackle and unpainted. It leaned a little. Upstairs windows had old bed sheets for curtains. Downstairs windows were naked as wind off the mountain. Not much could be seen through the windows because men stood outside the store, blocking the view.

  One man packed a silly old over-and-under, a two-barrel combination of .22 rifle and .410 shotgun. He pointed it at another man who knelt like in prayer. A half dozen other men stood around, watched, like people stuck in church with the sermon boring. Everybody except the kneeling man wore faded patches on faded clothes. The only man who looked fully alive was the guy who knelt. The rest of the men were old and tired. They seemed wispy.

  "You are more’n’likely gonna see a shooting," Tip said, "For God’s sake keep your mouth shut." He climbed from the Ford. Slammed the door. Knelt like he checked a tire, knelt real easy like he had all the time in the world. He kind of tsked, scratched himself behind the ear, then turned and ambled toward the men like nothing was going on.

  "Shitfire, Tom," he said to the man with the gun, "if you shoot the undertaker who’s gonna plant him?"

  The kneeling man looked about to faint. He dressed in city clothes. His shoes had once been polished. His eyes were wide and scary. Black hair dangled wet over sweaty forehead. "Tip," he said, "they got it all wrong."

  "They probably don’t," Tip told him. He turned to me. "This is what comes from too damn much government. The minute we started paying a death benefit, funeral prices went up to match the benefit."

  "T’ain’t that," Tom said. His arm trembled as he held the gun. It looked like the thing would go off just from his shaking. His hair was pure white, his face with black circles around green eyes . . . green but dulled . . . lots of Scots-Irish blood in these hills. Tom seemed feeble, but not at all nervous. "We got graveyard problems," he told Tip.

  "Might be fun," Tip said, and sounded droll, "to park him inside. Sweat him a little. You can always shoot him later."

  "If you wasn’t Tip," Tom said, "I reckon I wouldn’t listen." To the kneeling undertaker he said, "Remove your ass. Inside."

  I hope to never again see what I saw in Minnie’s store. What I heard, I can handle, and tell about. What I smelled was like sweet perfume, the kind that rises from corpses just before they begin to stink. What I saw . . .

  A congregation of weary men, white-haired with faces dark, especially around eyes and noses where coal dust painted faces into masks. Eyes, some brilliant, some flat and dull and deathlike, stared at us from the rings of blackness. Here and there a man wheezed. Others sat quiet, and if they breathed no one could hear. The silent ones seemed to have brighter eyes than the ones who drew breath.

  Minnie, rail-skinny, gray-haired and sharp of face, stood behind a bar made of plain boards. Behind her, shelves held chewing tobacco, plus some tobacco leaves, little cans of deviled ham, little cans of sardines. There were a few grocery items plus small bottles of aspirin and some patent medicines. Beer coolers ran beneath the shelves.

  When the undertaker came inside he stopped, even though he had a gun in his back. He went wild-eyed, gasped, and literally fell into the nearest chair. He was worth watching, but there was lots else to see so I just listened to him gasp.

  "Don’t you dare do any shootin’ in here," Minnie told Tom. "It makes a mess and it brings the law." Her voice sounded lots nicer than she looked, because she looked like fifty years of hard times. Her oversize man’s shirt made her seem small, like a boy. Her worn jeans bagged. Her graying hair was done in a bun. Her voice sounded alert in the surrounding tiredness.

  "Now me," Tip drawled, "I drink whilst on duty." He grinned at Minnie. She looked at me. Tip nodded. Minnie pulled two bottles. The undertaker still gasped, like maybe he would die for want of air.

  Tip straddled a chair and looked to Tom. "I ain’t come across a good story in a dog’s age. Lemmie hear it . . ." He got interrupted.

  The undertaker’s teeth began to chatter. He kept gasping. Finally, he looked toward one of the sitting men. "Ezekiel, I done buried you."

  "And did a piss poor job," Zeke said. Amber eyes flashed like a man alive and angry. Zeke’s voice was more like a dry rustle than an actual voice. The rustle did not sound kind. In fact, just the opposite.

  Somebody chuckled, but not friendly. Nothing else happened. The undertaker kept gasping. Tom told his story.

  "He buried my brother," Tom said. "Buried Ezra. Cheaper coffin than he promised. Coffin got loose. Dropped into the grave, instead of lowered. Cracked open, and Ezra looking at the sky." Tom reached to where he’d leaned the over-and-under. "This bastard threw dirt in Ezra’s face, and cussed him."

  I couldn’t tell whether Tom was dead or alive. He looked mostly alive, and his eyes didn’t shine like Zeke’s.

  "This shootin’-business reminds me," a man said to Minnie. "Give me two cartridges. Might could get a deer."

  30-30 cartridges, it turned out, cost thirty-five cents apiece.

  "Maybe you wanta wait," Tip said. "Near as I can figure, Ezra might drop in here any minute."

  The undertaker was as close to insanity as any man I’ve ever seen. He hunched in his chair, and when he wasn’t gasping for air he sobbed. His face was complete torment. He had badly made false teeth, shiny, but too big and clunky for his face. He whispered to another man. "Why you here, Bill? You’re buried."

  "The way you laid me out wan’t comfortable," Bill said. His voice was a dry whisper. "It ain’t right a man’s gotta be dead and not comfortable." Bill’s eyes were not green, but sharp and glowing blue.

  "Preacher," Tip said to another man, "I done heard you’d gone to glory."

  "I can’t figure it," the preacher whispered. He was a small man. Probably a lay preacher, self-ordained. He wore a frayed, black suit, and his white hair hung to his shoulders. His eyes glowed soft and gray. "Something’s goin’ on," he whispered. "Maybe the Baptists hogged it all. Might be there’s no glory left."

  Stillness. From outside a raven chuckled. A cow lowed, a dog barked. It was so quiet I could hear the bubbling of a distant stream that seemed to answer the raven. A way, way off in the distance, maybe two or three mountains to the west, a light plane hummed.

  "I reckon," Tom said, like he was talking to himself, "My brother Ezra is out there somewheres and about his own business. Goin’ it alone. He had that reputation."

  "This all happened once before," Minnie said. "You boys recall that big gom-up durin’ the war."

  "What gom-up?" Tip sounded just as businesslike and sensible as if he were sitting back at the office. I worked at taking his advice about not studying things. Nobody else seemed troubled. Except, of course, the undertaker.

  "When we had those drownings," Minnie said, "it was same time the company cut wages. Those boys walked out of the hole.
People swore they saw ‘em. Then the tipple burned. The mine office burned. The company store burned. Rail cars burned. Nary a coal car got loaded for three months. Then those boys disappeared into the forest. People swore they saw ‘em." She looked at all of the men, some alive, some dead. "Looks like nobody was lying."

  "Which means," Tip said in the direction of Tom and the preacher, "that you gents have been called back to do a hand of work. Instead of going off half-cocked, let’s wait it out. I reckon something’s about to happen."

  What happened was Sims and his pet goon, Pook.

  A man lounging in the open doorway looked toward the road. In a voice so tired it quavered he said, "Cadillac car a-coming." He sounded discouraged and beaten. To the preacher he said, "Better get to prayin’, for what-dog-good it’s gonna do."

  Sun sat high but westering. The shadow of Drowning Mountain reached into the hollow and across the road. The Cadillac ran so smooth that nothing could be heard, save the bump of its tires in ruts and potholes. Men stirred, uneasy. "Never to be let alone, never free," someone whispered, ". . . not in this life ‘ner any other." The voice filled with sadness.

  Pook got from the car first. He came into Minnie’s place, looked around, turned back toward the Cadillac. He must have given a signal. Sims got out and stepped toward us. He moved dainty on little feet, and his summer suit was clean as his car. When he spoke his voice was soft. "Very well, Pook. I’ll be but a minute." He ignored everyone except Pook. Then he turned to Tip. "Still kneeling, are we," he said to Tip. "Still hugging the poor and unwashed. Were I you, I’d vote Democrat."

  "Were I you," Tip told him, "I’d take a bath. Wash off a little-a that snot."

  "Watch that mouth." Pook stirred. His hand dropped toward the .45.

  "You watch yours," Tip told Pook. "When you threaten me, you threaten my uncle Sammy. Unc will get riled."

  "They were about to shoot me." The undertaker’s voice quavered like a scared baby. "I gotta get a ride to town."

  "You probably got a shootin’ comin’." Pook sounded real comfortable.

  "He probably does." Sims looked at Pook. "But he’s the only one around who handles paupers. The company needs him."

  "Get in the car," Pook told the undertaker. "Back seat. Don’t drip no sweat."

  The undertaker didn’t run. He scampered.

  "Goddamit, Tip." Tom had his dander up, green eyes coming almost as alive as eyes of the dead.

  "Could be I was wrong," Tip murmured, "or maybe not. It’s never no trouble to shoot a fella if you give it forethought."

  Except for Tip, there wasn’t a man in the place who wasn’t browbeat. I exclude myself, since half of what went on breezed right past me. The death smell wasn’t quite as strong, or maybe my nose got used to it. There was one woman there, though, and browbeat she wasn’t.

  "This is my place," she said to Sims, "and you ain’t welcome. Speak your piece and get the hell out." She glanced toward the preacher. "You’ll forgive the cuss."

  "Yes and no," Sims said pleasantly. "You own the building."

  "And the land," Minnie said, "Bought fair and square from the company, deed an’ all. Twenty bucks a month. Paid in full."

  "And the land," Sims agreed. "But the company owns the mineral rights."

  Tip pulled me to him. Whispered close in my ear. "Things are gonna get real bad. Keep your mouth shut."

  "This is a friendly call." Sims kind of purred. "Trying to help folks out.You’ll be wanting to move. Next month I got machinery coming in."

  "Gonna strip," someone whispered.

  "My cabin’s on that mountain," someone else whispered. "I done bought that cabin, five dollars a month."

  "The graveyard’s on that mountain. My woman’s buried up there." A man’s voice broke.

  Pook chuckled. Sims tried to look sad. "Maybe move the grave," he said. "Nothing I can do. It’s the company. The company calls the shots."

  "Not exactly true," Tip said. "Why are you doing this?"

  "Those seams are hardly touched," Sims told Tip. "That mountain has been a curse." He looked toward Minnie. "One month." He turned and walked to his car. Pook followed, but walking kind of sideways so as to cover his back.

  Silence. The whir of the Cadillac’s starter. The engine purred like an echo of Sims’s voice. The car pulled away. Somewhere toward the back of Minnie’s place came a dry sob. Men sat stunned, old, tired.

  "Give yourselves a minute to breathe," Tip said real quiet. "Those of you with breath. Those without are called back for something."

  Silence in the room was as deep as silence outside. No raven, no dog barking, no light plane buzzing. With the shadow of Drowning Mountain reaching across the hollow there should have been a breeze, but not a sound. Not a leaf stirring.

  Then, a crack, like doom riding horseback and striking flame from the hooves. I sat straight up. Looked around. Never saw so many happy faces. I tried to place the sound. It was like a three-inch-fifty cannon going off. Sharp. Eardrum buster.

  "How in the world," Tip said real pleased and casual, "are me and Jim ever gonna get back to town?"

  "Five-stick shot sure’n God’s wrath." The preacher looked about to start a sermon.

  "That Ezra," Tom said. "By God, Ezra had the nerve to done it. Waste of dynamite. A three-stick would been aplenty."

  Someone laughed out loud. "What do you figger the law will do to Ezra. Kill him?" This, while everybody headed outside to take a look.

  The Cadillac, what little was left of it, lay on its back beside a chunk of road that was no longer there. The car was a shiny hunk of black, twisted metal. A body in a summer suit lay sprawled among weeds, another body big as Godzilla lay without a head, and there were scattered pieces of what had once been an undertaker. Bloodstains mixed with burn stains on roadside weeds.

  "That Ezra," Minnie said, ". . . now Ezra was always best at setting a shot. He held that reputation."

  "Tunneled under the road. Set his charge. Ran his wires to the detonator, and hid on the hill. When the car drove across the charge, he shot those boys straight to hell." The preacher sounded apologetic. "I can’t find it in my heart to pray for ‘em."

  "And now we’re gonna catch hell." Tom looked to Tip. "We’re gonna get the law."

  "Don’t give it a first thought," Tip told him. "I got it covered." He turned to the preacher. "Pretty plain why you boys were called back."

  A man whispered. The whisper sounded faint, but pleased. He spoke to the preacher. "I reckon brother Sims and his lot feel sorta surprised. They got no experience at being dead." The voice turned mean. "I expect we should show ‘em some things. Sort of introduce them around."

  "I got a goodly number of things to demonstrate." Another whisper. The whisper sounded most unpleasant.

  "I purely agree," the preacher whispered, "an’ may The Lord have mercy on my sinful way."

  Down by the road an old man limped off the hill. He wore a black burial suit of the cheap kind furnished to the poor. He stood looking at the broken car and broken bodies. Then he scratched his head and looked like a man who figured he had wasted dynamite. Then he looked toward Minnie’s.

  "That Ezra," Tom said. "I expect you boys better get down there before he has all the fun."

  When those who were called back walked to the road, the crowd in front of Minnie’s store thinned. We trooped inside. When screaming and torment went on down there, it was not for the living to know or understand.

  "Anybody got a peavey?" Tip looked to Minnie. "Me and Jim have got to fix that road a little."

  We borrowed the peavey and used it to crack out sleepers from the broken rail bed. For two hours we tossed sleepers into the torn spot of road. With the sun back of the mountain, the old Ford limped across. We made it back to town considerably after dark.

  Next day Bobby Joe pulled Tip off to one side. The two men talked, looked toward me. Sarah Jane looked toward me. Lots of questions on faces. Not much said. It seemed clear I was on trial.

 
When the sheriff showed up he pulled me and Tip into Bobby Joe’s office. He wasn’t much of a sheriff.

  "Lord only knows who done it," Tip told him. "I can’t say who did, but can say who didn’t."

  "Could have been someone from town," I mentioned. "But I’m new around here. You might say I didn’t see anything except a well-used Cadillac."

  When the sheriff left it was clear I’d passed my test. Sarah Jane was lots more friendly. Bobby Joe said that maybe, in a couple months, I could go into the field alone.

  "Will those dead stay dead?" I asked Tip once we cleared out of the office.

  "Can’t imagine that they won’t."

  "And those alive?"

  "They are not off the hook," Tip told me. "You kill a bastard like Sims and ten more just like him come to the funeral. "

  It fell out that Tip was wrong. The coal company turned the show over to a man wise in the ways of the hills. He wasn’t a bit nicer than Sims, but lots smarter. He figured it more economic to strip some other mountain.

  I worked out of that office for two more years, then got transferred to Cincinnati. It took all of those two years, a long, long time, for the old men of Drowning Mountain to repair that road. I’m told that they sang church songs as they worked.

  Miss Molly's Manners

  A Book of Etiquette for Dogs by Miss Molly

  Manners as told to Jack Cady & Carol Orlock

  For Rufus and Keeley and Jude,

  great bounders and leapers all, in memory.

  Contents

  How it All Began

  A Word About Breeding

  Selecting Your Human

  Naming Your Human

  The Care of Humans

  A Primer for Puppies

  Why Mirrors Have No Scent

  Balls

  Approaches to the Ball

  A Word Concerning Squirrels

  In the Dubious Matter of Cats

  The Dog Who Owned A Harley: A Cautionary Tale

  The Car

  The Veterinary Visit

 

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